Systems and methods for recommending merchant discussion groups

ABSTRACT

Systems and methods are disclosed in which merchants on an e-commerce platform may use a same computer application to start and/or join discussion groups with other merchants on the e-commerce platform. An existing discussion group may be recommended to a merchant based on data specific to that merchant. A notification of the recommendation may be transmitted to the user interface of the merchant&#39;s device, and if the merchant accepts the recommendation, then the discussion group may be added to the set of discussion groups the merchant follows. Alternatively, a recommended discussion group may be automatically added to the set of discussion groups the merchant follows.

RELATED APPLICATION

This application is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No.16/447,087, entitled “Systems and Methods for Recommending MerchantDiscussion Groups Based on Settings in an E-commerce Platform”, whichwas filed on Jun. 20, 2019, the contents of which are incorporated byreference in their entirety.

FIELD

The present application relates to a computer application for use bymerchants in an e-commerce platform.

BACKGROUND

A merchant may use an e-commerce platform to sell goods and/or servicesto customers. The number of merchants that use an e-commerce platformmay be large, and these merchants may be geographically dispersed. Amerchant may feel isolated and lacking the ability to communicate withother merchants.

Therefore, some merchants have tried to use computer technology, such asthe Internet, to converse with other merchants. For example, a merchantmay start or join a discussion group on a social media platform, e.g. amerchant may start a Facebook™ group that other merchants may join.Merchants may use the discussion group to share information andexperiences. Examples of discussion groups include forums, messageboards, and chat rooms.

SUMMARY

In some embodiments, systems and methods are disclosed in whichmerchants on an e-commerce platform may use a same computer applicationto start and/or join discussion groups with other merchants on thee-commerce platform. The computer application may be part of orassociated with the e-commerce platform.

In some embodiments, systems and methods are disclosed in which anexisting discussion group is recommended to a merchant based on dataspecific to that merchant. A notification of the recommendation may betransmitted to the user interface of the merchant's device, and if themerchant accepts the recommendation, then the discussion group may beadded to the set of discussion groups the merchant follows.Alternatively, a recommended discussion group may be automatically addedto the set of discussion groups the merchant follows.

Examples of data specific to a merchant include: the merchant'sdevelopment phase, e.g. the state of the merchant's business; and/or themerchant's settings in the e-commerce platform; and/or other discussiongroups the merchant follows; and/or messages posted by the merchant inother discussion groups; etc.

For each discussion group the merchant follows, the merchant may use theuser interface of the merchant's device to read messages posted to thediscussion group by other merchants and/or to post messages to thediscussion group.

According to one embodiment, there is provided a computer-implementedmethod. The computer-implemented method may include retrieving dataspecific to a particular merchant that is stored in an e-commerceplatform. The method may further include using the data to categorizethe particular merchant as belonging to a particular category of aplurality of merchant categories, where each category of the pluralityof merchant categories has associated therewith a respective subset ofdiscussion groups. The method may further include selecting a targetdiscussion group that the particular merchant is not already associatedwith. The target discussion group is selected from the subset ofdiscussion groups associated with the particular category. The methodmay further include storing in memory an association between theparticular merchant and the target discussion group in order toassociate the particular merchant with the target discussion group. Asystem configured to perform the method may also be provided. Forexample, the system may include a memory to store information related toa plurality of discussion groups, and a processor to perform some or allof the steps above for the particular merchant.

According to another embodiment, there is provided anothercomputer-implemented method. The computer-implemented method may includeobtaining an indication that a particular merchant has a particularsetting in an e-commerce platform. The particular setting is one of aplurality of settings in the e-commerce platform, and each setting ofthe plurality of settings has associated therewith a respective subsetof discussion groups. The method may further include selecting a targetdiscussion group that the particular merchant is not already associatedwith. The target discussion group is selected from the subset of thediscussion groups associated with the particular setting. The method mayfurther include storing in memory an association between the particularmerchant and the target discussion group in order to associate theparticular merchant with the target discussion group. A systemconfigured to perform the method may also be provided. For example, thesystem may include a memory to store information related to a pluralityof discussion groups, and a processor to perform some or all of thesteps above for the particular merchant.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

Embodiments will be described, by way of example only, with reference tothe accompanying figures wherein:

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of an e-commerce platform, according to oneembodiment;

FIG. 2 is an example of a home page of an administrator, according toone embodiment;

FIG. 3 is a block diagram of an e-commerce platform, according toanother embodiment;

FIG. 4 illustrates a system for facilitating merchant discussion groups,according to one embodiment;

FIG. 5 illustrates a merchant device and memory of a communicationsserver in more detail, according to one embodiment;

FIG. 6 illustrates an example discussion group message exchange on amerchant device, according to one embodiment;

FIG. 7 illustrates the memory of the merchant data server in moredetail, according to one embodiment;

FIGS. 8 and 9 illustrate example user interfaces of a merchant device;

FIG. 10 illustrates a settings screen on a user interface of a merchantdevice, according to one embodiment;

FIG. 11 illustrates an example of four categories, each of whichcorresponds to a respective different merchant development phase;

FIG. 12 illustrates a computer-implemented method performed by a system,according to one embodiment;

FIG. 13 illustrates an example of look-up-table of a plurality ofsettings; and

FIG. 14 illustrates a computer-implemented method performed by a system,according to another embodiment.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

For illustrative purposes, specific example embodiments will now beexplained in greater detail below in conjunction with the figures.

Example E-Commerce Platform

The embodiments described in the following description are performed onor in association with an e-commerce platform. Therefore, an example ofan e-commerce platform will first be described.

FIG. 1 illustrates an e-commerce platform 100, according to oneembodiment. The e-commerce platform 100 may be used to provide merchantproducts and services to customers. While the disclosure contemplatesusing the apparatus, system, and process to purchase products andservices, for simplicity the description herein will refer to products.All references to products throughout this disclosure should also beunderstood to be references to products and/or services, includingphysical products, digital content, tickets, subscriptions, services tobe provided, and the like.

While the disclosure throughout contemplates that a ‘merchant’ and a‘customer’ may be more than individuals, for simplicity the descriptionherein may generally refer to merchants and customers as such. Allreferences to merchants and customers throughout this disclosure shouldalso be understood to be references to groups of individuals, companies,corporations, computing entities, and the like, and may representfor-profit or not-for-profit exchange of products. Further, while thedisclosure throughout refers to ‘merchants’ and ‘customers’, anddescribes their roles as such, the e-commerce platform 100 should beunderstood to more generally support users in an e-commerce environment,and all references to merchants and customers throughout this disclosureshould also be understood to be references to users, such as where auser is a merchant-user (e.g., a seller, retailer, wholesaler, orprovider of products), a customer-user (e.g., a buyer, purchase agent,or user of products), a prospective user (e.g., a user browsing and notyet committed to a purchase, a user evaluating the e-commerce platform100 for potential use in marketing and selling products, and the like),a service provider user (e.g., a shipping provider 112, a financialprovider, and the like), a company or corporate user (e.g., a companyrepresentative for purchase, sales, or use of products; an enterpriseuser; a customer relations or customer management agent, and the like),an information technology user, a computing entity user (e.g., acomputing bot for purchase, sales, or use of products), and the like.

The e-commerce platform 100 may provide a centralized system forproviding merchants with online resources and facilities for managingtheir business. The facilities described herein may be deployed in partor in whole through a machine that executes computer software, modules,program codes, and/or instructions on one or more processors which maybe part of or external to the platform 100. Merchants may utilize thee-commerce platform 100 for managing commerce with customers, such as byimplementing an e-commerce experience with customers through an onlinestore 138, through channels 110A-B, through POS devices 152 in physicallocations (e.g., a physical storefront or other location such as througha kiosk, terminal, reader, printer, 3D printer, and the like), bymanaging their business through the e-commerce platform 100, and byinteracting with customers through a communications facility 129 of thee-commerce platform 100, or any combination thereof. A merchant mayutilize the e-commerce platform 100 as a sole commerce presence withcustomers, or in conjunction with other merchant commerce facilities,such as through a physical store (e.g., ‘brick-and-mortar’ retailstores), a merchant off-platform website 104 (e.g., a commerce Internetwebsite or other internet or web property or asset supported by or onbehalf of the merchant separately from the e-commerce platform), and thelike. However, even these ‘other’ merchant commerce facilities may beincorporated into the e-commerce platform, such as where POS devices 152in a physical store of a merchant are linked into the e-commerceplatform 100, where a merchant off-platform website 104 is tied into thee-commerce platform 100, such as through ‘buy buttons’ that link contentfrom the merchant off platform website 104 to the online store 138, andthe like.

The online store 138 may represent a multitenant facility comprising aplurality of virtual storefronts. In embodiments, merchants may manageone or more storefronts in the online store 138, such as through amerchant device 102 (e.g., computer, laptop computer, mobile computingdevice, and the like), and offer products to customers through a numberof different channels 110A-B (e.g., an online store 138; a physicalstorefront through a POS device 152; electronic marketplace, through anelectronic buy button integrated into a website or social media channelsuch as on a social network, social media page, social media messagingsystem; and the like). A merchant may sell across channels 110A-B andthen manage their sales through the e-commerce platform 100, wherechannels 110A may be provided internal to the e-commerce platform 100 orfrom outside the e-commerce channel 110B. A merchant may sell in theirphysical retail store, at pop ups, through wholesale, over the phone,and the like, and then manage their sales through the e-commerceplatform 100. A merchant may employ all or any combination of these,such as maintaining a business through a physical storefront utilizingPOS devices 152, maintaining a virtual storefront through the onlinestore 138, and utilizing a communication facility 129 to leveragecustomer interactions and analytics 132 to improve the probability ofsales. Throughout this disclosure the terms online store 138 andstorefront may be used synonymously to refer to a merchant's onlinee-commerce offering presence through the e-commerce platform 100, wherean online store 138 may refer to the multitenant collection ofstorefronts supported by the e-commerce platform 100 (e.g., for aplurality of merchants) or to an individual merchant's storefront (e.g.,a merchant's online store).

In some embodiments, a customer may interact through a customer device150 (e.g., computer, laptop computer, mobile computing device, and thelike), a POS device 152 (e.g., retail device, a kiosk, an automatedcheckout system, and the like), or any other commerce interface deviceknown in the art. The e-commerce platform 100 may enable merchants toreach customers through the online store 138, through POS devices 152 inphysical locations (e.g., a merchant's storefront or elsewhere), topromote commerce with customers through dialog via electroniccommunication facility 129, and the like, providing a system forreaching customers and facilitating merchant services for the real orvirtual pathways available for reaching and interacting with customers.

In some embodiments, and as described further herein, the e-commerceplatform 100 may be implemented through a processing facility includinga processor and a memory, the processing facility storing a set ofinstructions that, when executed, cause the e-commerce platform 100 toperform the e-commerce and support functions as described herein. Theprocessing facility may be part of a server, client, networkinfrastructure, mobile computing platform, cloud computing platform,stationary computing platform, or other computing platform, and provideelectronic connectivity and communications between and amongst theelectronic components of the e-commerce platform 100, merchant devices102, payment gateways 106, application developers, channels 110A-B,shipping providers 112, customer devices 150, point of sale devices 152,and the like. The e-commerce platform 100 may be implemented as a cloudcomputing service, a software as a service (SaaS), infrastructure as aservice (IaaS), platform as a service (PaaS), desktop as a Service(DaaS), managed software as a service (MSaaS), mobile backend as aservice (MBaaS), information technology management as a service(ITMaaS), and the like, such as in a software and delivery model inwhich software is licensed on a subscription basis and centrally hosted(e.g., accessed by users using a client (for example, a thin client) viaa web browser or other application, accessed through by POS devices, andthe like). In some embodiments, elements of the e-commerce platform 100may be implemented to operate on various platforms and operatingsystems, such as iOS, Android, on the web, and the like (e.g., theadministrator 114 being implemented in multiple instances for a givenonline store for iOS, Android, and for the web, each with similarfunctionality).

In some embodiments, the online store 138 may be served to a customerdevice 150 through a webpage provided by a server of the e-commerceplatform 100. The server may receive a request for the webpage from abrowser or other application installed on the customer device 150, wherethe browser (or other application) connects to the server through an IPAddress, the IP address obtained by translating a domain name. Inreturn, the server sends back the requested webpage. Webpages may bewritten in or include Hypertext Markup Language (HTML), templatelanguage, JavaScript, and the like, or any combination thereof. Forinstance, HTML is a computer language that describes static informationfor the webpage, such as the layout, format, and content of the webpage.Website designers and developers may use the template language to buildwebpages that combine static content, which is the same on multiplepages, and dynamic content, which changes from one page to the next. Atemplate language may make it possible to re-use the static elementsthat define the layout of a webpage, while dynamically populating thepage with data from an online store. The static elements may be writtenin HTML, and the dynamic elements written in the template language. Thetemplate language elements in a file may act as placeholders, such thatthe code in the file is compiled and sent to the customer device 150 andthen the template language is replaced by data from the online store138, such as when a theme is installed. The template and themes mayconsider tags, objects, and filters. The client device web browser (orother application) then renders the page accordingly.

In some embodiments, online stores 138 may be served by the e-commerceplatform 100 to customers, where customers can browse and purchase thevarious products available (e.g., add them to a cart, purchaseimmediately through a buy-button, and the like). Online stores 138 maybe served to customers in a transparent fashion without customersnecessarily being aware that it is being provided through the e-commerceplatform 100 (rather than directly from the merchant). Merchants may usea merchant configurable domain name, a customizable HTML theme, and thelike, to customize their online store 138. Merchants may customize thelook and feel of their website through a theme system, such as wheremerchants can select and change the look and feel of their online store138 by changing their theme while having the same underlying product andbusiness data shown within the online store's product hierarchy. Themesmay be further customized through a theme editor, a design interfacethat enables users to customize their website's design with flexibility.Themes may also be customized using theme-specific settings that changeaspects, such as specific colors, fonts, and pre-built layout schemes.The online store may implement a content management system for websitecontent. Merchants may author blog posts or static pages and publishthem to their online store 138, such as through blogs, articles, and thelike, as well as configure navigation menus. Merchants may upload images(e.g., for products), video, content, data, and the like to thee-commerce platform 100, such as for storage by the system (e.g. as data134). In some embodiments, the e-commerce platform 100 may providefunctions for resizing images, associating an image with a product,adding and associating text with an image, adding an image for a newproduct variant, protecting images, and the like.

As described herein, the e-commerce platform 100 may provide merchantswith transactional facilities for products through a number of differentchannels 110A-B, including the online store 138, over the telephone, aswell as through physical POS devices 152 as described herein. Thee-commerce platform 100 may include business support services 116, anadministrator 114, and the like associated with running an on-linebusiness, such as providing a domain service 118 associated with theironline store, payment services 120 for facilitating transactions with acustomer, shipping services 122 for providing customer shipping optionsfor purchased products, risk and insurance services 124 associated withproduct protection and liability, merchant billing, and the like.Services 116 may be provided via the e-commerce platform 100 or inassociation with external facilities, such as through a payment gateway106 for payment processing, shipping providers 112 for expediting theshipment of products, and the like.

In some embodiments, the e-commerce platform 100 may provide forintegrated shipping services 122 (e.g., through an e-commerce platformshipping facility or through a third-party shipping carrier), such asproviding merchants with real-time updates, tracking, automatic ratecalculation, bulk order preparation, label printing, and the like.

FIG. 2 depicts a non-limiting embodiment for a home page of anadministrator 114, which may show information about daily tasks, astore's recent activity, and the next steps a merchant can take to buildtheir business. In some embodiments, a merchant may log in toadministrator 114 via a merchant device 102 such as from a desktopcomputer or mobile device, and manage aspects of their online store 138,such as viewing the online store's 138 recent activity, updating theonline store's 138 catalog, managing orders, recent visits activity,total orders activity, and the like. In some embodiments, the merchantmay be able to access the different sections of administrator 114 byusing the sidebar, such as shown on FIG. 2. Sections of theadministrator 114 may include various interfaces for accessing andmanaging core aspects of a merchant's business, including orders,products, customers, available reports and discounts. The administrator114 may also include interfaces for managing sales channels for a storeincluding the online store, mobile application(s) made available tocustomers for accessing the store (Mobile App), POS devices, and/or abuy button. The administrator 114 may also include interfaces formanaging applications (Apps) installed on the merchant's account;settings applied to a merchant's online store 138 and account. Amerchant may use a search bar to find products, pages, or otherinformation. Depending on the device 102 or software application themerchant is using, they may be enabled for different functionalitythrough the administrator 114. For instance, if a merchant logs in tothe administrator 114 from a browser, they may be able to manage allaspects of their online store 138. If the merchant logs in from theirmobile device (e.g. via a mobile application), they may be able to viewall or a subset of the aspects of their online store 138, such asviewing the online store's 138 recent activity, updating the onlinestore's 138 catalog, managing orders, and the like.

More detailed information about commerce and visitors to a merchant'sonline store 138 may be viewed through acquisition reports or metrics,such as displaying a sales summary for the merchant's overall business,specific sales and engagement data for active sales channels, and thelike. Reports may include, acquisition reports, behavior reports,customer reports, finance reports, marketing reports, sales reports,custom reports, and the like. The merchant may be able to view salesdata for different channels 110A-B from different periods of time (e.g.,days, weeks, months, and the like), such as by using drop-down menus. Anoverview dashboard may be provided for a merchant that wants a moredetailed view of the store's sales and engagement data. An activity feedin the home metrics section may be provided to illustrate an overview ofthe activity on the merchant's account. For example, by clicking on a‘view all recent activity’ dashboard button, the merchant may be able tosee a longer feed of recent activity on their account. A home page mayshow notifications about the merchant's online store 138, such as basedon account status, growth, recent customer activity, and the like.Notifications may be provided to assist a merchant with navigatingthrough a process, such as capturing a payment, marking an order asfulfilled, archiving an order that is complete, and the like.

The e-commerce platform 100 may provide for a communications facility129 and associated merchant interface for providing electroniccommunications and marketing, such as utilizing an electronic messagingaggregation facility for collecting and analyzing communicationinteractions between merchants, customers, merchant devices 102,customer devices 150, POS devices 152, and the like, to aggregate andanalyze the communications, such as for increasing the potential forproviding a sale of a product, and the like. For instance, a customermay have a question related to a product, which may produce a dialogbetween the customer and the merchant (or automated processor-basedagent representing the merchant), where the communications facility 129analyzes the interaction and provides analysis to the merchant on how toimprove the probability for a sale.

The e-commerce platform 100 may provide a financial facility 120 forsecure financial transactions with customers, such as through a securecard server environment. The e-commerce platform 100 may store creditcard information, such as in payment card industry data (PCI)environments (e.g., a card server), to reconcile financials, billmerchants, perform automated clearing house (ACH) transfers between ane-commerce platform 100 financial institution account and a merchant'sback account (e.g., when using capital), and the like. These systems mayhave Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) compliance and a high level of diligencerequired in their development and operation. The financial facility 120may also provide merchants with financial support, such as through thelending of capital (e.g., lending funds, cash advances, and the like)and provision of insurance. In addition, the e-commerce platform 100 mayprovide for a set of marketing and partner services and control therelationship between the e-commerce platform 100 and partners. They alsomay connect and onboard new merchants with the e-commerce platform 100.These services may enable merchant growth by making it easier formerchants to work across the e-commerce platform 100. Through theseservices, merchants may be provided help facilities via the e-commerceplatform 100.

In some embodiments, online store 138 may support a great number ofindependently administered storefronts and process a large volume oftransactional data on a daily basis for a variety of products.Transactional data may include customer contact information, billinginformation, shipping information, information on products purchased,information on services rendered, and any other information associatedwith business through the e-commerce platform 100. In some embodiments,the e-commerce platform 100 may store this data in a data facility 134.The transactional data may be processed to produce analytics 132, whichin turn may be provided to merchants or third-party commerce entities,such as providing consumer trends, marketing and sales insights,recommendations for improving sales, evaluation of customer behaviors,marketing and sales modeling, trends in fraud, and the like, related toonline commerce, and provided through dashboard interfaces, throughreports, and the like. The e-commerce platform 100 may store informationabout business and merchant transactions, and the data facility 134 mayhave many ways of enhancing, contributing, refining, and extractingdata, where over time the collected data may enable improvements toaspects of the e-commerce platform 100.

Referring again to FIG. 1, in some embodiments the e-commerce platform100 may be configured with a commerce management engine 136 for contentmanagement, task automation and data management to enable support andservices to the plurality of online stores 138 (e.g., related toproducts, inventory, customers, orders, collaboration, suppliers,reports, financials, risk and fraud, and the like), but be extensiblethrough applications 142A-B that enable greater flexibility and customprocesses required for accommodating an ever-growing variety of merchantonline stores, POS devices, products, and services, where applications142A may be provided internal to the e-commerce platform 100 orapplications 142B from outside the e-commerce platform 100. In someembodiments, an application 142A may be provided by the same partyproviding the platform 100 or by a different party. In some embodiments,an application 142B may be provided by the same party providing theplatform 100 or by a different party. The commerce management engine 136may be configured for flexibility and scalability through portioning(e.g., sharding) of functions and data, such as by customer identifier,order identifier, online store identifier, and the like. The commercemanagement engine 136 may accommodate store-specific business logic andin some embodiments, may incorporate the administrator 114 and/or theonline store 138.

The commerce management engine 136 includes base or “core” functions ofthe e-commerce platform 100, and as such, as described herein, not allfunctions supporting online stores 138 may be appropriate for inclusion.For instance, functions for inclusion into the commerce managementengine 136 may need to exceed a core functionality threshold throughwhich it may be determined that the function is core to a commerceexperience (e.g., common to a majority of online store activity, such asacross channels, administrator interfaces, merchant locations,industries, product types, and the like), is re-usable across onlinestores 138 (e.g., functions that can be re-used/modified across corefunctions), limited to the context of a single online store 138 at atime (e.g., implementing an online store ‘isolation principle’, wherecode should not be able to interact with multiple online stores 138 at atime, ensuring that online stores 138 cannot access each other's data),provide a transactional workload, and the like. Maintaining control ofwhat functions are implemented may enable the commerce management engine136 to remain responsive, as many required features are either serveddirectly by the commerce management engine 136 or enabled through aninterface 140A-B, such as by its extension through an applicationprogramming interface (API) connection to applications 142A-B andchannels 110A-B, where interfaces 140A may be provided to applications142A and/or channels 110A inside the e-commerce platform 100 or throughinterfaces 140B provided to applications 142B and/or channels 110Boutside the e-commerce platform 100. Generally, the platform 100 mayinclude interfaces 140A-B (which may be extensions, connectors, APIs,and the like) which facilitate connections to and communications withother platforms, systems, software, data sources, code and the like.Such interfaces 140A-B may be an interface 140A of the commercemanagement engine 136 or an interface 140B of the platform 100 moregenerally. If care is not given to restricting functionality in thecommerce management engine 136, responsiveness could be compromised,such as through infrastructure degradation through slow databases ornon-critical backend failures, through catastrophic infrastructurefailure such as with a data center going offline, through new code beingdeployed that takes longer to execute than expected, and the like. Toprevent or mitigate these situations, the commerce management engine 136may be configured to maintain responsiveness, such as throughconfiguration that utilizes timeouts, queues, back-pressure to preventdegradation, and the like.

Although isolating online store data is important to maintaining dataprivacy between online stores 138 and merchants, there may be reasonsfor collecting and using cross-store data, such as for example, with anorder risk assessment system or a platform payment facility, both ofwhich require information from multiple online stores 138 to performwell. In some embodiments, rather than violating the isolationprinciple, it may be preferred to move these components out of thecommerce management engine 136 and into their own infrastructure withinthe e-commerce platform 100.

In some embodiments, the e-commerce platform 100 may provide for aplatform payment facility 120, which is another example of a componentthat utilizes data from the commerce management engine 136 but may belocated outside so as to not violate the isolation principle. Theplatform payment facility 120 may allow customers interacting withonline stores 138 to have their payment information stored safely by thecommerce management engine 136 such that they only have to enter itonce. When a customer visits a different online store 138, even ifthey've never been there before, the platform payment facility 120 mayrecall their information to enable a more rapid and correct check out.This may provide a cross-platform network effect, where the e-commerceplatform 100 becomes more useful to its merchants as more merchantsjoin, such as because there are more customers who checkout more oftenbecause of the ease of use with respect to customer purchases. Tomaximize the effect of this network, payment information for a givencustomer may be retrievable from an online store's checkout, allowinginformation to be made available globally across online stores 138. Itwould be difficult and error prone for each online store 138 to be ableto connect to any other online store 138 to retrieve the paymentinformation stored there. As a result, the platform payment facility maybe implemented external to the commerce management engine 136.

For those functions that are not included within the commerce managementengine 136, applications 142A-B provide a way to add features to thee-commerce platform 100. Applications 142A-B may be able to access andmodify data on a merchant's online store 138, perform tasks through theadministrator 114, create new flows for a merchant through a userinterface (e.g., that is surfaced through extensions/API), and the like.Merchants may be enabled to discover and install applications 142A-Bthrough application search, recommendations, and support 128. In someembodiments, core products, core extension points, applications, and theadministrator 114 may be developed to work together. For instance,application extension points may be built inside the administrator 114so that core features may be extended by way of applications, which maydeliver functionality to a merchant through the extension.

In some embodiments, applications 142A-B may deliver functionality to amerchant through the interface 140A-B, such as where an application142A-B is able to surface transaction data to a merchant (e.g., App:“Engine, surface my app data in mobile and web admin using the embeddedapp SDK”), and/or where the commerce management engine 136 is able toask the application to perform work on demand (Engine: “App, give me alocal tax calculation for this checkout”).

Applications 142A-B may support online stores 138 and channels 110A-B,provide for merchant support, integrate with other services, and thelike. Where the commerce management engine 136 may provide thefoundation of services to the online store 138, the applications 142A-Bmay provide a way for merchants to satisfy specific and sometimes uniqueneeds. Different merchants will have different needs, and so may benefitfrom different applications 142A-B. Applications 142A-B may be betterdiscovered through the e-commerce platform 100 through development of anapplication taxonomy (categories) that enable applications to be taggedaccording to a type of function it performs for a merchant; throughapplication data services that support searching, ranking, andrecommendation models; through application discovery interfaces such asan application store, home information cards, an application settingspage; and the like.

Applications 142A-B may be connected to the commerce management engine136 through an interface 140A-B, such as utilizing APIs to expose thefunctionality and data available through and within the commercemanagement engine 136 to the functionality of applications (e.g.,through REST, GraphQL, and the like). For instance, the e-commerceplatform 100 may provide API interfaces 140A-B to merchant andpartner-facing products and services, such as including applicationextensions, process flow services, developer-facing resources, and thelike. With customers more frequently using mobile devices for shopping,applications 142A-B related to mobile use may benefit from moreextensive use of APIs to support the related growing commerce traffic.The flexibility offered through use of applications and APIs (e.g., asoffered for application development) enable the e-commerce platform 100to better accommodate new and unique needs of merchants (and internaldevelopers through internal APIs) without requiring constant change tothe commerce management engine 136, thus providing merchants what theyneed when they need it. For instance, shipping services 122 may beintegrated with the commerce management engine 136 through a shipping orcarrier service API, thus enabling the e-commerce platform 100 toprovide shipping service functionality without directly impacting coderunning in the commerce management engine 136.

Many merchant problems may be solved by letting partners improve andextend merchant workflows through application development, such asproblems associated with back-office operations (merchant-facingapplications 142A-B) and in the online store 138 (customer-facingapplications 142A-B). As a part of doing business, many merchants willuse mobile and web related applications on a daily basis for back-officetasks (e.g., merchandising, inventory, discounts, fulfillment, and thelike) and online store tasks (e.g., applications related to their onlineshop, for flash-sales, new product offerings, and the like), whereapplications 142A-B, through extension/API 140A-B, help make productseasy to view and purchase in a fast growing marketplace. In someembodiments, partners, application developers, internal applicationsfacilities, and the like, may be provided with a software developmentkit (SDK), such as through creating a frame within the administrator 114that sandboxes an application interface. In some embodiments, theadministrator 114 may not have control over nor be aware of what happenswithin the frame. The SDK may be used in conjunction with a userinterface kit to produce interfaces that mimic the look and feel of thee-commerce platform 100, such as acting as an extension of the commercemanagement engine 136.

Applications 142A-B that utilize APIs may pull data on demand, but oftenthey also need to have data pushed when updates occur. Update events maybe implemented in a subscription model, such as for example, customercreation, product changes, or order cancelation. Update events mayprovide merchants with needed updates with respect to a changed state ofthe commerce management engine 136, such as for synchronizing a localdatabase, notifying an external integration partner, and the like.Update events may enable this functionality without having to poll thecommerce management engine 136 all the time to check for updates, suchas through an update event subscription. In some embodiments, when achange related to an update event subscription occurs, the commercemanagement engine 136 may post a request, such as to a predefinedcallback URL. The body of this request may contain a new state of theobject and a description of the action or event. Update eventsubscriptions may be created manually, in the administrator facility114, or automatically (e.g., via the API 140A-B). In some embodiments,update events may be queued and processed asynchronously from a statechange that triggered them, which may produce an update eventnotification that is not distributed in real-time.

In some embodiments, the e-commerce platform 100 may provide applicationsearch, recommendation and support 128. Application search,recommendation and support 128 may include developer products and toolsto aid in the development of applications, an application dashboard(e.g., to provide developers with a development interface, toadministrators for management of applications, to merchants forcustomization of applications, and the like), facilities for installingand providing permissions with respect to providing access to anapplication 142A-B (e.g., for public access, such as where criteria mustbe met before being installed, or for private use by a merchant),application searching to make it easy for a merchant to search forapplications 142A-B that satisfy a need for their online store 138,application recommendations to provide merchants with suggestions on howthey can improve the user experience through their online store 138, adescription of core application capabilities within the commercemanagement engine 136, and the like. These support facilities may beutilized by application development performed by any entity, includingthe merchant developing their own application 142A-B, a third-partydeveloper developing an application 142A-B (e.g., contracted by amerchant, developed on their own to offer to the public, contracted foruse in association with the e-commerce platform 100, and the like), oran application 142A or 142B being developed by internal personalresources associated with the e-commerce platform 100. In someembodiments, applications 142A-B may be assigned an applicationidentifier (ID), such as for linking to an application (e.g., through anAPI), searching for an application, making application recommendations,and the like.

The commerce management engine 136 may include base functions of thee-commerce platform 100 and expose these functions through APIs 140A-Bto applications 142A-B. The APIs 140A-B may enable different types ofapplications built through application development. Applications 142A-Bmay be capable of satisfying a great variety of needs for merchants butmay be grouped roughly into three categories: customer-facingapplications, merchant-facing applications, integration applications,and the like. Customer-facing applications 142A-B may include onlinestore 138 or channels 110A-B that are places where merchants can listproducts and have them purchased (e.g., the online store, applicationsfor flash sales (e.g., merchant products or from opportunistic salesopportunities from third-party sources), a mobile store application, asocial media channel, an application for providing wholesale purchasing,and the like). Merchant-facing applications 142A-B may includeapplications that allow the merchant to administer their online store138 (e.g., through applications related to the web or website or tomobile devices), run their business (e.g., through applications relatedto POS devices), to grow their business (e.g., through applicationsrelated to shipping (e.g., drop shipping), use of automated agents, useof process flow development and improvements), and the like. Integrationapplications may include applications that provide useful integrationsthat participate in the running of a business, such as shippingproviders 112 and payment gateways.

In some embodiments, an application developer may use an applicationproxy to fetch data from an outside location and display it on the pageof an online store 138. Content on these proxy pages may be dynamic,capable of being updated, and the like. Application proxies may beuseful for displaying image galleries, statistics, custom forms, andother kinds of dynamic content. The core-application structure of thee-commerce platform 100 may allow for an increasing number of merchantexperiences to be built in applications 142A-B so that the commercemanagement engine 136 can remain focused on the more commonly utilizedbusiness logic of commerce.

The e-commerce platform 100 provides an online shopping experiencethrough a curated system architecture that enables merchants to connectwith customers in a flexible and transparent manner. A typical customerexperience may be better understood through an embodiment examplepurchase workflow, where the customer browses the merchant's products ona channel 110A-B, adds what they intend to buy to their cart, proceedsto checkout, and pays for the content of their cart resulting in thecreation of an order for the merchant. The merchant may then review andfulfill (or cancel) the order. The product is then delivered to thecustomer. If the customer is not satisfied, they might return theproducts to the merchant.

In an example embodiment, a customer may browse a merchant's products ona channel 110A-B. A channel 110A-B is a place where customers can viewand buy products. In some embodiments, channels 110A-B may be modeled asapplications 142A-B (a possible exception being the online store 138,which is integrated within the commence management engine 136). Amerchandising component may allow merchants to describe what they wantto sell and where they sell it. The association between a product and achannel may be modeled as a product publication and accessed by channelapplications, such as via a product listing API. A product may have manyoptions, like size and color, and many variants that expand theavailable options into specific combinations of all the options, likethe variant that is extra-small and green, or the variant that is sizelarge and blue. Products may have at least one variant (e.g., a “defaultvariant” is created for a product without any options). To facilitatebrowsing and management, products may be grouped into collections,provided product identifiers (e.g., stock keeping unit (SKU)) and thelike. Collections of products may be built by either manuallycategorizing products into one (e.g., a custom collection), by buildingrulesets for automatic classification (e.g., a smart collection), andthe like. Products may be viewed as 2D images, 3D images, rotating viewimages, through a virtual or augmented reality interface, and the like.

In some embodiments, the customer may add what they intend to buy totheir cart (in an alternate embodiment, a product may be purchaseddirectly, such as through a buy button as described herein). Customersmay add product variants to their shopping cart. The shopping cart modelmay be channel specific. The online store 138 cart may be composed ofmultiple cart line items, where each cart line item tracks the quantityfor a product variant. Merchants may use cart scripts to offer specialpromotions to customers based on the content of their cart. Since addinga product to a cart does not imply any commitment from the customer orthe merchant, and the expected lifespan of a cart may be in the order ofminutes (not days), carts may be persisted to an ephemeral data store.

The customer then proceeds to checkout. A checkout component mayimplement a web checkout as a customer-facing order creation process. Acheckout API may be provided as a computer-facing order creation processused by some channel applications to create orders on behalf ofcustomers (e.g., for point of sale). Checkouts may be created from acart and record a customer's information such as email address, billing,and shipping details. On checkout, the merchant commits to pricing. Ifthe customer inputs their contact information but does not proceed topayment, the e-commerce platform 100 may provide an opportunity tore-engage the customer (e.g., in an abandoned checkout feature). Forthose reasons, checkouts can have much longer lifespans than carts(hours or even days) and are therefore persisted. Checkouts maycalculate taxes and shipping costs based on the customer's shippingaddress. Checkout may delegate the calculation of taxes to a taxcomponent and the calculation of shipping costs to a delivery component.A pricing component may enable merchants to create discount codes (e.g.,‘secret’ strings that when entered on the checkout apply new prices tothe items in the checkout). Discounts may be used by merchants toattract customers and assess the performance of marketing campaigns.Discounts and other custom price systems may be implemented on top ofthe same platform piece, such as through price rules (e.g., a set ofprerequisites that when met imply a set of entitlements). For instance,prerequisites may be items such as “the order subtotal is greater than$100” or “the shipping cost is under $10”, and entitlements may be itemssuch as “a 20% discount on the whole order” or “$10 off products X, Y,and Z”.

Customers then pay for the content of their cart resulting in thecreation of an order for the merchant. Channels 110A-B may use thecommerce management engine 136 to move money, currency or a store ofvalue (such as dollars or a cryptocurrency) to and from customers andmerchants. Communication with the various payment providers (e.g.,online payment systems, mobile payment systems, digital wallet, creditcard gateways, and the like) may be implemented within a paymentprocessing component. The actual interactions with the payment gateways106 may be provided through a card server environment. In someembodiments, the payment gateway 106 may accept international payment,such as integrating with leading international credit card processors.The card server environment may include a card server application, cardsink, hosted fields, and the like. This environment may act as thesecure gatekeeper of the sensitive credit card information. In someembodiments, most of the process may be orchestrated by a paymentprocessing job. The commerce management engine 136 may support manyother payment methods, such as through an offsite payment gateway 106(e.g., where the customer is redirected to another website), manually(e.g., cash), online payment methods (e.g., online payment systems,mobile payment systems, digital wallet, credit card gateways, and thelike), gift cards, and the like. At the end of the checkout process, anorder is created. An order is a contract of sale between the merchantand the customer where the merchant agrees to provide the goods andservices listed on the orders (e.g., order line items, shipping lineitems, and the like) and the customer agrees to provide payment(including taxes). This process may be modeled in a sales component.Channels 110A-B that do not rely on commerce management engine 136checkouts may use an order API to create orders. Once an order iscreated, an order confirmation notification may be sent to the customerand an order placed notification sent to the merchant via a notificationcomponent. Inventory may be reserved when a payment processing jobstarts to avoid over-selling (e.g., merchants may control this behaviorfrom the inventory policy of each variant). Inventory reservation mayhave a short time span (minutes) and may need to be very fast andscalable to support flash sales (e.g., a discount or promotion offeredfor a short time, such as targeting impulse buying). The reservation isreleased if the payment fails. When the payment succeeds, and an orderis created, the reservation is converted into a long-term inventorycommitment allocated to a specific location. An inventory component mayrecord where variants are stocked, and tracks quantities for variantsthat have inventory tracking enabled. It may decouple product variants(a customer facing concept representing the template of a productlisting) from inventory items (a merchant facing concept that representan item whose quantity and location is managed). An inventory levelcomponent may keep track of quantities that are available for sale,committed to an order or incoming from an inventory transfer component(e.g., from a vendor).

The merchant may then review and fulfill (or cancel) the order. A reviewcomponent may implement a business process merchant's use to ensureorders are suitable for fulfillment before actually fulfilling them.Orders may be fraudulent, require verification (e.g., ID checking), havea payment method which requires the merchant to wait to make sure theywill receive their funds, and the like. Risks and recommendations may bepersisted in an order risk model. Order risks may be generated from afraud detection tool, submitted by a third-party through an order riskAPI, and the like. Before proceeding to fulfillment, the merchant mayneed to capture the payment information (e.g., credit card information)or wait to receive it (e.g., via a bank transfer, check, and the like)and mark the order as paid. The merchant may now prepare the productsfor delivery. In some embodiments, this business process may beimplemented by a fulfillment component. The fulfillment component maygroup the line items of the order into a logical fulfillment unit ofwork based on an inventory location and fulfillment service. Themerchant may review, adjust the unit of work, and trigger the relevantfulfillment services, such as through a manual fulfillment service(e.g., at merchant managed locations) used when the merchant picks andpacks the products in a box, purchase a shipping label and input itstracking number, or just mark the item as fulfilled. A customfulfillment service may send an email (e.g., a location that doesn'tprovide an API connection). An API fulfillment service may trigger athird party, where the third-party application creates a fulfillmentrecord. A legacy fulfillment service may trigger a custom API call fromthe commerce management engine 136 to a third party (e.g., fulfillmentby Amazon). A gift card fulfillment service may provision (e.g.,generating a number) and activate a gift card. Merchants may use anorder printer application to print packing slips. The fulfillmentprocess may be executed when the items are packed in the box and readyfor shipping, shipped, tracked, delivered, verified as received by thecustomer, and the like.

If the customer is not satisfied, they may be able to return theproduct(s) to the merchant. The business process merchants may gothrough to “un-sell” an item may be implemented by a return component.Returns may consist of a variety of different actions, such as arestock, where the product that was sold actually comes back into thebusiness and is sellable again; a refund, where the money that wascollected from the customer is partially or fully returned; anaccounting adjustment noting how much money was refunded (e.g.,including if there was any restocking fees, or goods that weren'treturned and remain in the customer's hands); and the like. A return mayrepresent a change to the contract of sale (e.g., the order), and wherethe e-commerce platform 100 may make the merchant aware of complianceissues with respect to legal obligations (e.g., with respect to taxes).In some embodiments, the e-commerce platform 100 may enable merchants tokeep track of changes to the contract of sales over time, such asimplemented through a sales model component (e.g., an append-onlydate-based ledger that records sale-related events that happened to anitem).

Communication with Other Merchants on E-Commerce Platform 100

A merchant may use an e-commerce platform, e.g. e-commerce platform 100,to sell goods and/or services to customers. The number of merchants thatuse an e-commerce platform may be large, and these merchants may begeographically dispersed. A merchant may feel isolated and lacking theability to communicate with other merchants. Problems arise, such as howdoes a merchant know where to navigate on the Internet in order to joinor start a discussion group with other merchants on an e-commerceplatform. For example, not every merchant on an e-commerce platformnecessarily uses Facebook™ to start or join a discussion group over acomputer network. Some merchants on the e-commerce platform may insteaduse another social media platform to join or start a discussion group.Another example problem is how does a merchant find discussion groupsthat are relevant and of interest to the merchant. For example, amerchant who does not ship any physical products, but instead sellsdownloadable content, would likely not be interested in a discussiongroup for merchants about shipping, but may be interested in adiscussion group for merchants about selling downloadable content.

In view of the above, in some embodiments systems and methods aredisclosed in which merchants on an e-commerce platform may use a samecomputer application to start and/or join discussion groups with othermerchants on the e-commerce platform. The computer application may bepart of or associated with the e-commerce platform. In some embodiments,systems and methods are disclosed in which an existing discussion groupis recommended to a merchant based on data specific to that merchant.

For example, e-commerce platform 100 includes a communications facility129, which may be used to perform functions such as facilitatingelectronic communication with customers. In some embodiments, thecommunications facility 129 executes an application that also allows forgroup discussions between different merchants on the e-commerce platform100. For example, FIG. 3 illustrates the e-commerce platform 100 of FIG.1, but including merchant discussion group application code 202 storedin memory 204, and a processor 206. The merchant discussion groupapplication code 202 includes computer-executable instructions that,when executed by the processor 206, cause the processor 206 to implementmerchant discussion groups and provide the functionality explainedherein, e.g. identifying target merchant discussion groups for amerchant based on merchant-specific data. The merchant discussion groupapplication code 202, when executed, may cause the processor 206 tocommunicate with other components of the e-commerce platform 100 (e.g.the commerce management engine 136) in order to obtain themerchant-specific data.

However, although the embodiments described below may be implemented inassociation with e-commerce platform 100, the embodiments describedbelow are not limited to the specific e-commerce platform 100 of FIGS. 1to 3. Therefore, the embodiments below will be presented more generallyin relation to any e-commerce platform.

Merchant Discussion Groups

FIG. 4 illustrates a system 250 for facilitating merchant discussiongroups, according to one embodiment. The system 250 includes a pluralityof different merchant devices, labelled merchant device 1 to merchantdevice N. In FIG. 4, each merchant device belongs to a respectivedifferent merchant, but more generally some merchants may have more thanone merchant device. Reference character 252 is used to genericallyindicate any one merchant device of the plurality of different merchantdevices 1 to N. For example, reference character 252 is used to indicatemerchant device 1 in FIG. 4, but this is only an example. A merchantdevice 252 is a device used by a merchant to communicate with othermerchants over a network 254. For example, merchant device 252 may be amobile phone, tablet, laptop, or personal computer owned and/or used bya merchant.

A merchant device 252 includes a user interface 256. An example of auser interface is a display screen (which may be a touch screen), and/ora keyboard, and/or a mouse. A merchant device 252 further includes anetwork interface 258 for communicating over the network 254. Thestructure of the network interface 258 will depend on how the merchantdevice 252 interfaces with the network. For example, if the merchantdevice is a mobile phone or tablet, the network interface 258 maycomprise a transmitter/receiver with an antenna to send and receivewireless transmissions to/from the network 254. If the merchant deviceis a personal computer connected to the network with a network cable,the network interface 258 may comprise a network interface card (NIC),and/or a computer port (e.g. a physical outlet to which a plug or cableconnects), and/or a network socket, etc. A merchant device 252 furtherincludes a processor 260 and a memory 262. The processor 260 directlyperforms or instructs all of the operations performed by the merchantdevice 252, e.g. preparing information for transmission over the network254, processing data received over the network 254, instructing thedisplay screen to display information, processing user inputs receivedthrough the user interface 256, etc. The processor 260 may beimplemented by one or more processors that execute instructions storedin the memory 262. Alternatively, some or all of the processor 260 maybe implemented using dedicated circuitry, such as an applicationspecific integrated circuit (ASIC), a graphics processing unit (GPU), ora programmed field programmable gate array (FPGA).

The system 250 further includes an e-commerce platform 270. Thee-commerce platform 270 includes a communications server 272, which is aserver that executes an application that allows for merchants tocommunicate with each other and with customers over the network 254. Thecommunications server 272 includes a processor 274 and an associatedmemory 276. The processor 274 may be implemented by one or moreprocessors that execute instructions stored in the memory 276.Alternatively, some or all of the processor 274 may be implemented usingdedicated circuitry, such as an ASIC, GPU, or FPGA. The communicationsserver 272 further includes a network interface 278 for communicatingover the network 254. The structure of the network interface 278 isimplementation specific. For example, in some implementations thenetwork interface 278 may comprise a NIC, and/or a computer port (e.g. aphysical outlet to which a plug or cable connects), and/or a networksocket, etc. The processor 274 directly performs or instructs all of theoperations performed by the communications server 272, e.g. trackingwhich discussion groups each merchant follows, receiving message postsfrom merchant devices (via the network interface 278), pushing ortransmitting message posts to the relevant merchant devices (via networkinterface 278), determining recommendations for discussion groups forone or more of the merchants, tracking settings for each merchant, etc.

The e-commerce platform 270 further includes a merchant data server 280,which is a component of the e-commerce platform 270 that maintains datarelating to each merchant, e.g. merchant profiles, merchant settings,transaction data, product data, collection data, etc. The merchant dataserver 280 includes a memory 282 for storing all of the data. Themerchant data server 280 further includes a processor 284 for directlyperforming or instructing all of the operations performed by themerchant data server 280. The processor 284 may be implemented by one ormore processors that execute instructions stored in the memory 282.Alternatively, some or all of the processor 284 may be implemented usingdedicated circuitry, such as an ASIC, GPU, or FPGA. The merchant dataserver 280 further includes a network interface 286 for communicatingover the network 254. The structure of the network interface 286 isimplementation specific. For example, in some implementations thenetwork interface 286 may comprise a NIC, and/or a computer port (e.g. aphysical outlet to which a plug or cable connects), and/or a networksocket, etc. The merchant data server 280 may further include an API 288for receiving requests for data from the communications server 272 andfor providing the requested data to the communications server 272 viathe network 254. The API 288 is shown as a separate component, but itmay be implemented by the processor 284 and the network interface 286.For example, the structure of the API 288 may include the processor 284and network interface 286, where the processor 284 executes instructionsthat cause the processor 284 to receive API calls through the networkinterface 286, to obtain the data requested in the API call, and to sendthe requested data through the network interface 286.

Although the communications server 272 and the merchant data server 280are shown as two separate servers, they may actually be the same serverin some implementations. Also, in some embodiments the server 272 and/orserver 280 may be distributed or have distributed components (e.g.distributed over network 254). Also, in some embodiments, the server 272and/or server 280 may instead be substituted with another computingsystem, and that other computing system may or may not have distributedcomponents. In some embodiments, the e-commerce platform 270 may be theexample e-commerce platform 100 described earlier, in which case thecommunications server 272 may be implemented as part of communicationsfacility 129 (e.g. the merchant discussion group application code 202may be executed by processor 274), and in which case the merchant dataserver 280 may include all or part of commerce management engine 136 andall or part of data facility 134.

In operation, a merchant may use his or her merchant device 252 tocommunicate with other merchants over network 254 via the sending andreceiving of messages using the communications server 272 as anintermediary. For example, upon receipt of a message at thecommunications server 272 from a merchant device, the communicationsserver 272 transmits the message to the intended recipient merchantdevices. The communications server 272 facilitates group discussionsbetween merchants. For example, the communications server 272 mayassociate a set of merchants with a discussion group. When a merchant isassociated with a discussion group, the merchant is said to “belong to”the discussion group or “in” the discussion group or “following” thediscussion group or “added” to the discussion group. This means that themerchant receives, at their merchant device, messages posted to thediscussion group by other merchants that are also in the discussiongroup. The merchant also typically has the ability to use their merchantdevice to themselves post messages to that discussion group in order toactively participate in the group conversation. A merchant is said to be“participating” in a discussion group when the merchant is following thediscussion group and possibly posting messages to the discussion group.A merchant is said to be “actively participating” in a discussion groupwhen the merchant is following the discussion group and has recentlyposted a message to the discussion group.

Each discussion group is associated with an identifier that is stored inthe communications server 272. The identifier uniquely identifies thediscussion group. The identifier may be a title or label, e.g.“Shipping”. A merchant wishing to post a message to the discussion grouptypes their message on their merchant device in the appropriate inputobject on the user interface (e.g. under the “Shipping” heading). Themessage is transmitted to communications server 272 and stored in thememory 276 on the communications server 272 in association with thediscussion group. The message is then transmitted, e.g. “pushed”, toother merchant devices of merchants associated with that discussiongroup. The communications server 272 may add and remove merchants fromdiscussion groups. The communications server 272 may request data fromthe merchant data server 280 in relation to a particular merchant, anduse the requested data to recommend a discussion group for thatmerchant. The recommendation may be transmitted to the merchant's deviceand/or the communications server 272 may automatically add the merchantto the recommended discussion group.

FIG. 5 illustrates both the merchant device 252 and the memory 276 ofcommunications server 272 in more detail. When a merchant device isillustrated in this figure and in the remaining figures, it will beassumed that the merchant device is a mobile device, e.g. a mobile phoneor tablet, but this is only an example.

The merchant device 252 includes user interface 256, which in thisexample is a touch screen displaying a vertically stacked list ofheaders 302 and 304. Each header can be selected by a user input toreveal or hide content. Header 302 is entitled ‘Customers’. Header 302is in a collapsed state, but if selected would expand to display anyongoing communications the merchant is having with the merchant'scustomers or potential customers. Header 304 is entitled ‘Community’.Header 304 refers to the merchant community and it is in an expandedstate to display merchant discussion groups that the merchant isfollowing.

The expanded menu under header 304 lists all of the discussion groupsthe merchant is following, e.g. #Shipping, #NewMerchant, etc. Selectingone of the discussion groups displays the messages posted to that groupby other merchants. Messages may also be typed into the merchant device252 and posted to the discussion group. For example, FIG. 6 illustratesthe #Shipping discussion group on merchant device 252 for merchant Ted.Messages posted by other merchants participating in the #Shippingdiscussion group are displayed, e.g. at 255. Input object 257 allowsmerchant Ted to input a message that will also be posted to the#Shipping discussion group. For example, messages 259 were posted by Tedusing input object 257.

Returning to FIG. 5, stored in the memory 276 of the communicationsserver 272 are all of the existing discussion groups 312. In someembodiments, new discussion groups may be created at the request ofmerchants. In some embodiments, inactive discussion groups may bedeleted by the communications server 272. In some embodiments, amerchant is not permitted to start a new discussion group, but can onlyfollow pre-existing discussion groups. The pre-existing discussiongroups may be default discussion groups established by thecommunications server 272.

The time-ordered sequence of messages posted to each discussion group isstored in association with that discussion group. For example, FIG. 5illustrates four discussion groups: #Shipping, which is a discussiongroup relating to shipping products; #NewMerchant, which is a discussiongroup for new merchants; #FacebookAds, which is a discussion group formerchants using or interested in Facebook™ advertising; and#SellInChina, which is a discussion group for merchants who sell (or areinterested in selling) to customers in China. These discussion groupsare only examples, and many other or different discussion groups mayexist. A merchant may use a search box 314 on the user interface 256 oftheir merchant device 252 to search for merchant discussion groups ofinterest that the merchant may wish to follow. As discussed in moredetail below, in some embodiments a merchant may be automatically addedto a recommended discussion group based on merchant-specific data,and/or a recommendation for a discussion group may be presented to themerchant on the user interface 256 of the merchant's device.

Also stored in memory 276 of the communications server 272 is anassociation between the merchant and each discussion group to which themerchant belongs. For example, a table 322 is illustrated in FIG. 5 thatstores which discussion groups each merchant follows. The table 322 maybe used to determine which discussion groups are to be presented on themerchant device for each merchant. A message posted to a particulardiscussion group will only be transmitted to merchant devices ofmerchants that, according table 322, follow that discussion group. In analternative embodiment, instead of (or in addition to) table 322, eachdiscussion group may store a list of which merchants follow thatdiscussion group. When a message is posted to a particular discussiongroup, the message will only be transmitted to merchant devices ofmerchants that follow that discussion group.

Also stored in memory 276 is application code 326, which in thisembodiment is code stored in memory and executed by the processor 274 ofthe communications server 272 in order to perform operations relating tofacilitating the discussion groups. For example, code may be storedthat, when executed, causes the processor 274 to communicate with themerchant devices (via the network interface 278), add/remove discussiongroups 312, push messages posted to a discussion group to the relevantmerchant devices, generate recommendations for discussion groups formerchants in the manner explained herein, etc.

FIG. 7 illustrates the memory 282 of the merchant data server 280 inmore detail. Stored in memory 282 includes merchant-specific data foreach merchant, which is recorded by the e-commerce platform 270. A fewexamples of merchant-specific data are illustrated in FIG. 7 for twomerchants: “Fred” and “Jane”.

Merchant-specific data may include profile data 352 that stores profileinformation relating to each merchant. A non-exhaustive list of profiledata 352 that may possibly be stored includes: merchant's name; languagespoken; merchant's location; age of merchant's account (i.e. how longhas merchant been part of the e-commerce platform 270); merchant'sgender; merchant's age or demographic, etc.

Merchant-specific data may include settings data 354 that storesparticular settings in the e-commerce platform 270 related to eachmerchant. A non-exhaustive list of settings data that may possibly bestored includes: which sales channels the merchant uses (e.g. does themerchant have an online store, a Facebook™ channel, an Instagram™channel, an Amazon™ marketplace channel, a physical store, etc.); isshipping enabled, and if so which shipping providers does the merchantuse; in which countries does the merchant sell his/her products; whichpayment services does the merchant have enabled; etc.

Although profile data 352 is shown as being different from settings data354, this is just an example. More generally, much or all of the dataillustrated as “profile data 352” in FIG. 7 is actually just settingsdata stored in the e-commerce platform, e.g. merchant's language,merchant's location, etc.

Merchant-specific data may include transactions data 356 that storesdata related to transactions between merchants and the merchant'scustomers. A non-exhaustive list of transactions data that may possiblybe stored includes: sales revenue month-to-date and/or year-to-date;average monthly sales revenue; average yearly sales revenue; totalamount of sales revenue for each sales channel (e.g. total amount ofsales on online store channel, Facebook™ channel, Instagram™ channel,etc.), possibly categorized by year and/or by month; time elapsed sincelast sales transaction; total number of sales transactions; averagenumber of sales transactions per month and/or per year; etc.

The communications server 272 may use the merchant-specific data storedin the merchant data server 280 in order to identify target discussiongroups for a merchant, which may be of interest to the merchant. Forexample, merchant Jane has just joined the merchant discussion groupapplication, and so the communications server 272 sends a query to themerchant data server 280 requesting merchant-specific data on merchantJane. The returned data for merchant Jane indicates that she recentlycreated an account with the e-commerce platform 270 and set up heronline store, but that she has not made any sales yet. Based on thisdata, the communications server 272 identifies #NewMerchant as a targetdiscussion group for Jane. The discussion group #NewMerchant may then beautomatically added to the set of discussion groups that Jane follows intable 322 in FIG. 5, or a permission request message may be transmittedto Jane's device making the recommendation and seeking permission to addJane to the #NewMerchant discussion group.

FIG. 8 illustrates two example user interfaces 256 of the merchantdevice 252 for merchant Ted in a situation in which merchant Ted hasbeen automatically added to the discussion group #FacebookAds. Ted mayhave been automatically added to the discussion group #FacebookAds forthe following reason:

(1) The communications server 272 obtained merchant-specific data storedfor merchant Ted on the merchant data server 280, and thatmerchant-specific data revealed that Ted has a setting in the e-commerceplatform 270 indicating that Ted has a Facebook™ sales channel(“Facebook™ sales channel=YES”).(2) The #FacebookAds discussion group is one of a subset of discussiongroups specifically associated with the particular setting “Facebook™sales channel=YES”.(3) The communications server 272 checks table 322 in FIG. 5 and notesthat Ted is not associated with (i.e. does not already follow)#FacebookAds.(4) The discussion group #FacebookAds is therefore automatically addedto the set of discussion groups that Ted follows in table 322 in FIG. 5.

A message is transmitted to Ted's merchant device 252 to update the userinterface 256 to add #FacebookAds as a displayed and selectable optionunder the collapsed “Community” header. As shown in Example 1 in FIG. 8,a message 362 may be displayed on the user interface 256 indicating thatthe discussion group is “newly added”. In Example 2, a notificationmessage 363 is instead displayed on the user interface 256 indicatingthat the #FacebookAds discussion group is “suggested”.

FIG. 9 illustrates two example user interfaces 256 of the merchantdevice 252 for merchant Ted in a situation in which a permission requestis sent to merchant Ted recommending the discussion group #FacebookAdsand seeking merchant Ted's permission to add Ted to the discussiongroup. The recommendation may have been made for the following reason:

(1) The communications server 272 obtained merchant-specific data storedfor merchant Ted on the merchant data server 280, and thatmerchant-specific data revealed that Ted has a setting in the e-commerceplatform 270 indicating that Ted has a Facebook™ sales channel(“Facebook™ sales channel=YES”).(2) The #FacebookAds discussion group is one of a subset of discussiongroups specifically associated with the particular setting “Facebook'sales channel=YES”.(3) The communications server 272 checks table 322 in FIG. 5 and notesthat Ted is not associated with (i.e. does not already follow)#FacebookAds.(4) A request recommending the discussion group #FacebookAds istherefore transmitted to Ted's merchant device.

The request message is displayed on the user interface 256 of themerchant device 252, e.g. as shown at 364 in Example 1 of FIG. 9. Aselectable input object 366 embedded in the message may be selected bymerchant Ted. The input object 366, when selected, causes the merchantdevice 252 to transmit a response message back to the communicationsserver 272 indicating that merchant Ted agrees to follow the#FacebookAds discussion group. The discussion group #FacebookAds is thenadded to the set of discussion groups that Ted follows in table 322 inFIG. 5. A message is transmitted to Ted's merchant device 252 to updatethe user interface 256 to add #FacebookAds as a displayed and selectableoption under the collapsed “Community” header. In Example 2 in FIG. 9,the request message displayed on the user interface 256 is simply thetitle of the recommended group (#FacebookAds) with an input object 365indicating “Join?”. If “Join” is selected, then a response message issent back to the communications server 272, the “Join” input object 365disappears, and #FacebookAds is added to the set of discussion groupsthat Ted follows.

In some embodiments, a merchant may use his/her merchant device 252 tomodify settings that control aspects related to recommended discussiongroups. For example, FIG. 10 illustrates a settings screen on the userinterface 256 of merchant device 252, according to one embodiment. Thesettings screen includes a section 372 relating to settings forrecommending discussion groups. The merchant provides his/her user inputto select the appropriate settings, which are then transmitted andstored on communications server 272. The communications server 272 actsin accordance with the rules set by the merchant and stored at thecommunications server 272 whenever the communications server 272identifies target discussion groups for the merchant. A non-exhaustivelist of example settings that impact which target discussion groups areidentified possibly include only identifying discussion groups that are:trending, and/or recently updated, and/or location specific(country/city etc.), and/or language specific, and/or involving similarmerchants (similar products, services, etc.).

Example ways in which the communications server 272 may identify targetmerchant discussion groups for a merchant will now be described in moredetail.

Identifying Merchant Discussion Groups Based on Merchant Categories

In some embodiments, merchant-specific data may be used to categorize amerchant as belonging to a particular category of a plurality ofmerchant categories. A target merchant discussion group may beidentified for a merchant based on the category to which the merchantbelongs. A non-exhaustive list of examples of merchant categoriesinclude:

-   Categories based on the merchant's development phase, e.g. based on    the state of the merchant's business. For example, there may be a    set of different categories, each category corresponding to a    respective state of the merchant's business, like the example    discussed below in relation to FIG. 11.-   Categories based on the products and/or services for sale by the    merchant. For example, there may be a set of different categories,    each category corresponding to a respective different product or    product-type. As another example, there may be a set of different    categories, each category corresponding to a respective different    collection or collection-type. As another example, there may be a    set of different categories, each category corresponding to a    respective different service or service type.-   Categories based on industry to which the merchant belongs. For    example, there may be a set of different categories, each category    corresponding to a respective different industry (e.g. one category    for fashion, another category for electronics, etc.).

In some embodiments, the set of categories may include categories fromdifferent ones of the examples above, e.g. there may be categories basedon industry, categories based on products, and categories based on stateof the merchant's business.

In some embodiments, merchant-specific data is used to categorize themerchant into one or more categories, and a recommendation for adiscussion group is made based on the category or categories to whichthe merchant belongs. An example will be explained below in which atarget discussion group is identified for a merchant based on themerchant's development phase, e.g. the state of the merchant's business.

The state of the merchant's business may be obtained by the processor274 based on merchant-specific data for the merchant that is stored onthe merchant data server 280. For example, the data stored for merchantJane in FIG. 7 indicates that merchant Jane recently created an accountand has not yet made a first sale. Therefore, the processor 274 mayidentify Jane's merchant development phase as “New Merchant”. Thecategory “New Merchant” may be associated with a particular subset ofthe existing discussion groups. The discussion groups associated withthe category “New Merchant” are deemed to have relevance to a newmerchant, e.g. #NewMerchant, #HowToFindCustomers, etc. One or more ofthe associated discussion groups may be identified as a targetdiscussion group and automatically associated with Jane, e.g. the targetdiscussion group may be automatically added to the set of discussiongroups that Jane follows (e.g. in the way described in relation to FIG.8). Alternatively, a message may be sent to Jane requesting permissionto add Jane to the target discussion group (e.g. in the way described inrelation to FIG. 9).

FIG. 11 illustrates an example of four categories, each of whichcorresponds to a respective different merchant development phase. Anexample mapping between merchant-specific data and the categories isalso illustrated, which allows for a merchant to be categorized into oneof the categories based on the merchant-specific data for that merchant.The mapping may be a look-up-table 402 stored in the memory 276 of thecommunications server 272.

For each merchant on the e-commerce platform 270, the following datarelating to the merchant's development phase is retrieved from themerchant data server 280: (1) the total sales the merchant has made fora given period of time, and (2) the average number of visits or viewsper day of the merchant's online store or the merchant's products orcatalog via other channels. Depending upon the total sales to date andthe average number of visits or views, the merchant's development phaseis mapped to one of four categories:

-   “New Merchant” (low traffic, low sales): One or more existing    merchant discussion groups are associated in memory with this    category, e.g. a discussion group for new merchants (#NewMerchant),    a discussion group about finding customers (#FindingCustomers), etc.-   “High-conversion Merchant” (low traffic, high sales): One or more    existing merchant discussion groups are associated in memory with    this category, e.g. a discussion group about expanding to other    sales channels (#NewChannels), a discussion group relating to    advertising (e.g. #FacebookAds), etc.-   “Low-conversion Merchant” (high traffic, low sales): One or more    existing merchant discussion groups are associated in memory with    this category, e.g. a discussion group about conversion analysis    tools (#ConversionTools), a discussion group about the basics of    conversion (#Conversion101), etc.-   “Mature Merchant” (high traffic, high sales): One or more existing    merchant discussion groups are associated in memory with this    category, e.g. discussion groups relating to expanding the business,    such as #GrowYourBusiness, #InternationalExpansion, etc.

A specific example is given in FIG. 11 in which a merchant is mapped toone of the four categories based on whether or not the average number ofwebsite visits to the merchant's online store is below 20 visits perday, and based on whether or not the total sales made by the merchant todate is below $10,000. Based on the category to which the merchant'sdevelopment phase is mapped, one or more existing discussion groupsassociated with that category are identified as a target discussiongroup for that merchant. In some embodiments, identified targetdiscussion groups may be further filtered for a particular merchantbased on one or more of the other factors discussed herein, e.g. if themerchant has indicated in settings that the merchant is only interestedin discussion groups with merchants in a particular region, then onlydiscussion groups having a majority of merchants in that particularregion are identified. An identified target discussion group may berecommended to the merchant (like in FIG. 9) or automatically added tothe set of discussion groups associated with the merchant (e.g., like inFIG. 8 with the discussion group being added to table 322 of FIG. 5).

In some embodiments, a discussion group is associated with one of thefour categories in FIG. 11 by the communications server 272. Thediscussion group may be selected from a pre-existing set of defaultdiscussion groups. For example, a merchant may not be permitted to starta new discussion group, but only allowed to follow pre-existingdiscussion groups that are established by the communications server 272.A system designer may select which discussion group is associated witheach of the four categories in FIG. 11. In other embodiments, adiscussion group may be dynamically associated with one of the fourcategories in FIG. 11 based on merchant-specific data associated withthe merchants that participate in that discussion group. For example, ifa new discussion group is started by merchant Jane, and merchant Jane iscategorized as “New Merchant”, and/or the majority of participants inthat discussion group are categorized as “New Merchant”, then thediscussion group may be associated with the “New Merchant” category inthe look-up-table 402.

FIG. 12 illustrates a computer-implemented method performed by a system,according to one embodiment. For the sake of example, the method of FIG.12 will be described as being performed by the processor 274 ofcommunications server 272.

In optional step 452, the processor 274 stores in memory 276 informationrelated to a plurality of discussion groups. The information includes:(i) an identifier for each discussion group that uniquely identifies thediscussion group, and (ii) for each discussion group a time-orderedsequence of messages that belong to the discussion group. An example ofsuch information is that shown in discussion groups 312 in FIG. 5. Forexample, the label #Shipping is an identifier that uniquely identifiesthat discussion group, and the time-ordered sequence of messages includethose shown under the label #Shipping in FIG. 5 (and also on the userinterface in FIG. 6). Step 452 is optional in the embodiment of FIG. 12because the method may instead begin at a later point in time, e.g. atstep 456.

In optional step 454, the processor 272 stores in memory 276associations between merchants and the discussion groups. One exampleway to store the associations is table 322 in FIG. 5, which shows anassociation between each merchant and a respective subset of thediscussion groups. Another example way to store the associations is tohave a table (not illustrated) in which each discussion group hasassociated in memory a respective subset of the merchants. In any case,at least two of the discussion groups may each be associated with arespective different set of merchants. That is, different discussiongroups may have different merchants associated therewith. For example,discussion group #Shipping may be associated with Jane and Fred, but notTed, and discussion group #NewMerchant may be associated with Ted andJane, but not Fred. A message belonging to a discussion group istransmitted to merchant devices of the merchants associated with thediscussion group. Step 454 is optional in the embodiment of FIG. 12because the method may instead begin at a later point in time, e.g. atstep 456.

The following steps are performed for a particular merchant. Theparticular merchant may be a particular user/person (e.g. merchant Fred)or a particular company, or a particular online store. In step 456, theprocessor 274 retrieves data specific to the particular merchant that isstored in an e-commerce platform. For example, the processor 274 mayretrieve merchant specific data for Fred stored in merchant data server280 of e-commerce platform 270.

In step 458, the processor 274 uses the data to categorize theparticular merchant as belonging to a particular category of a pluralityof merchant categories. Each category of the plurality of merchantcategories has associated therewith a respective subset of thediscussion groups. In some embodiments, each category of the pluralityof categories corresponds to a respective different merchant developmentphase, e.g. the four categories shown in FIG. 11. The processor 274 mayperform the categorizing step by using the look-up-table 402 in FIG. 11to map the merchant to one of the four categories in FIG. 11. Forexample, the data retrieved for merchant Fred indicates that Fred hastotal sales greater than $10,000, and more than twenty website visitsper day on average to Fred's online store. Look-up-table 402 thereforemaps this merchant-specific data for Fred to the category “MatureMerchant”. Fred is thereby categorized as “Mature Merchant”.

In step 460, the processor 274 selects a target discussion group thatthe particular merchant is not already associated with. The targetdiscussion group is selected from the subset of the discussion groupsassociated with the particular category. For example, the “MatureMerchant” category has associated therewith a subset of discussiongroups including #InternationalExpansion and #GrowYourBusiness. Table322 reveals that Fred is not already associated with the discussiongroup #InternationalExpansion. Therefore, #InternationalExpansion isselected as a target discussion group for Fred.

In step 462, the processor 274 stores in the memory 276 an associationbetween the particular merchant and the target discussion group in orderto associate the particular merchant with the target discussion group.For example, table 322 may be updated to add #InternationalExpansion toFred's entry in the table 322. Fred is now following the discussiongroup #InternationalExpansion.

The merchant categories do not have to correspond to different merchantdevelopment phases. As discussed above, the categories may be based onother parameters, such as merchant type categories. Merchant typecategories may be based on products and/or services offered by themerchant, and/or industries to which the merchant belongs, and/ormerchant location, etc. In some embodiments, the merchant type categoryfor a particular merchant may be updated or changed dynamically if newproducts/services are added to/removed from the merchant's store. Thismay then affect which discussion groups may be recommended or removedfor the merchant. For example, if a merchant adds a new collection or anew product, the merchant may be categorized at belonging to a newcategory, and a target discussion group associated with the new category(and not yet associated with the merchant) may be recommended.

In some embodiments, before performing step 462, i.e. before associatingthe particular merchant with the target discussion group, the followingsteps may first be performed. A request may be transmitted over anetwork to a merchant device of the particular merchant. The requestrecommends that the particular merchant be associated with the targetdiscussion group. A response is received over the network from themerchant device of the particular merchant. The response authorizes thatthe particular merchant be associated with the target discussion group.Examples are shown and described in relation to FIG. 9. The request maybe a message transmitted over network 254 to merchant device 252 anddisplayed on the user interface of the merchant's device. The responsemay be generated and sent back to the communications server 272 upon themerchant selecting input object 365 or 366 in FIG. 9.

In some embodiments, the data specific to the particular merchant thatis retrieved in step 456 is first data, the particular category is afirst category, the target discussion group is a first target discussiongroup, and the method of FIG. 12 further includes: (1) retrieving seconddata specific to the particular merchant, the second data beingretrieved after associating the particular merchant with the firsttarget discussion group; using the second data to remove the particularmerchant from the first category and instead categorize the particularmerchant as belonging to a different second category of the plurality ofcategories; (3) selecting a second target discussion group that theparticular merchant is not already associated with, the second targetdiscussion group being selected from the subset of the discussion groupsassociated with second category; and (4) storing in the memory anassociation between the particular merchant and the second targetdiscussion group in order to associate the particular merchant with thesecond target discussion group. For example, merchant Jane may becategorized as “New Merchant” in step 458 of FIG. 12, and the discussiongroup #NewMerchant may be associated with Jane in the memory (e.g. intable 322). Subsequently, updated data retrieved for Jane indicates thatnow Jane has many website visits to her online store but still a smalldollar amount in sales. Based on this updated data, the processor 272now instead categorizes Jane as “Low-conversion Merchant”. Jane may thenbe added to a new discussion group that is associated with the category“Low-conversion Merchant” and that Jane is not already following, e.g.#Conversion101.

In some embodiments, the method then further includes deleting from thememory the association between the particular merchant and the firsttarget discussion group and/or replacing the association with anassociation with another discussion group that may be more relevant orapplicable. For example, if Jane is re-categorized as “Low-conversionMerchant”, then Jane may no longer be associated with the discussiongroup #NewMerchant and/or instead be associated instead with the#Conversion101 discussion group.

In some embodiments, prior to deleting from the memory the associationbetween the particular merchant and the first target discussion group,the following steps are performed: (1) transmitting a request over anetwork to a merchant device of the particular merchant, the requestquerying whether the particular merchant is to still be associated withthe first target discussion group; and (2) receiving a response over thenetwork from the merchant device of the particular merchant, theresponse indicating that the particular merchant is to no longer beassociated with the first target discussion group. For example, amessage may be transmitted to Jane's device asking whether Jane wouldlike to be removed from the #NewMerchant discussion group. If Janeresponds “yes”, then the association between Jane and #NewMerchant isdeleted from table 322. In some embodiments, the request for removing ordeleting a particular discussion may be coupled with a request foradding another discussion group which may be more applicable orrelevant.

In some embodiments, a discussion group in the subset of discussiongroups associated with one category is different from another discussiongroup in the subset of discussion groups associated with anothercategory. For example, the subset of discussion groups associated withthe category “New Merchant” in FIG. 11 includes discussion group#NewMerchant. The discussion group #NewMerchant is different fromanother discussion group associated with another category in FIG. 11. Insome embodiments, a discussion group in the subset of discussion groupsassociated with the particular category is different from each otherdiscussion group in the subset of discussion groups associated withanother category, e.g. #NewMerchant is a discussion group different fromall of the discussion groups associated with the category “MatureMerchant”. In some embodiments, a discussion group in the subset ofdiscussion groups associated with the particular category is differentfrom the discussion groups in each other subset of discussion groupsassociated with each other category of the plurality of categories, e.g.#Conversion101 is associated with the category “Low-conversionMerchant”, and #Conversion101 is different from any other discussiongroup associated with any other category in FIG. 11.

In some embodiments, for each category of the plurality of categories: adiscussion group in the subset of discussion groups associated with thecategory is different from the discussion groups in each other subset ofdiscussion groups associated with each other category of the pluralityof categories. For example, in FIG. 11, the illustrated subset ofdiscussion groups associated with each category are different from theillustrated discussion groups associated with each other category. Thatis, each category has its own unique discussion groups associatedtherewith that are not associated with other categories.

In some embodiments, the data specific to the particular merchantretrieved in step 456 may include an indication of a quantity of visitsto an online store of the particular merchant. A visit may be registeredif at least one page or element of a merchant online store is sent to acustomer device. In some embodiments, the page or element of themerchant online store may be sent via any channel e.g. online store,blog post, POS device, etc. In some embodiments, the visits are websitevisits to the webpage of the merchant's online store. In someembodiments, the quantity of visits may be within a particular timeperiod (e.g. last 30 days, during Christmas season, duringback-to-school season, etc.), or associated with one or more particularparameters (e.g. quantity of visits from a particular country).

In some embodiments, the data specific to the particular merchantretrieved in step 456 may include an indication of or informationrelated to one, some, or all of the following: store visits (possiblyspecific to or categorized by country); sales data; customer shippingaddresses; quantity of sales and/or visits for a particular time periodor event (e.g. Christmas season, back-to-school, season, etc.).

In some embodiments, the data specific to the particular merchantretrieved in step 456 may include information relating to number ofsales and/or dollar amount of sales of one or more products sold by theparticular merchant using the e-commerce platform. In some embodiments,each category of the plurality of merchant categories corresponds to arespective different merchant development phase. In some embodiments,one merchant development phase corresponds to a first quantity of onlinestore website visits and/or first sales data, and another merchantdevelopment phase corresponds to a second quantity of online storewebsite visits and/or second sales data, e.g. like in FIG. 11. In someembodiments, each category of the plurality of merchant categoriescorresponds to a respective merchant type. Merchant type categories maybe based on parameters such as products and/or services offered by themerchant, and/or industries to which the merchant belongs, etc.

In some embodiments, the method of FIG. 12 may further include: (1)receiving a request over a network from a merchant device of a merchant,the request to create a new discussion group; (2) storing in the memorya new identifier for the new discussion group that uniquely identifiesthe new discussion group; (3) storing in the memory subsequent messagesthat belong to the new discussion group; and (4) associating the newdiscussion group with a given category of the plurality of categories.In some embodiments, the merchant that requested to create the newdiscussion group belongs to the given category. In some embodiments, themajority of merchants associated with the new discussion group belong tothe given category. For example, merchant Jane may decide that she wantsto start a new discussion group she calls #NewbieHacks. Jane sends arequest (via her merchant device) to server 272 to create the newdiscussion group. The processor 274 stores the new identifier(#NewbieHacks) for the group in discussion groups 312, along with anysubsequent messages that belong to the new discussion group. Theprocessor 274 also decides which category in FIG. 11 to associate thenew group with, and stores the association. In some embodiments, the newgroup may be associated with the category “New Merchant” because that isthe category in FIG. 11 to which merchant Jane is belong. In someembodiments, the new group may be associated with the category “NewMerchant” because that is the category to which the majority ofmerchants associated with or participating in (e.g. posting messages in)the new group discussion belong.

In some embodiments, the subset of discussion groups associated with amerchant category may include one or more discussion groups that relateto another merchant category. This may allow for a discussion grouprelating to one merchant category to be associated with (e.g.recommended to) a merchant in another merchant category. For example, amerchant may be mapped to the merchant category “New Merchant” in FIG.11. However, the merchant may benefit from discussion groups related toone of the other merchant categories (e.g. related to “Mature Merchant”)because such group discussions could potentially provide the merchantwith information and interactions that encourage the merchant toincrease their business and move beyond the “New Merchant” category.Therefore, in some embodiments, one or more merchant discussion groupsrelated to another category (e.g. related to “Mature Merchant”) may beassociated with the category “New Merchant” and recommended to amerchant in the category “New Merchant”. The decision to make therecommendation may be based on other factors also, e.g. the similaritybetween merchants. For example, a first merchant in the category “NewMerchant” may be similar to a second merchant in the category “MatureMerchant” (e.g. the first merchant and the second merchant may havesomething in common, such as sell the same category of products orservices, and/or live in the same geographical location, and/or sell onthe same sales channels, etc.). A discussion group that is associatedwith the second merchant may be recommended to the first merchant. Insome embodiments, a merchant category may have associated therewithdiscussion groups related to a next/subsequent merchant developmentphase, e.g. the merchant category “New Merchant” may have associatedtherewith some discussion groups related to next merchant developmentphase/category “Growing Merchant”.

Identifying Merchant Discussion Groups Based on Stored Settings

In some embodiments, a merchant discussion group may be identified for amerchant based on the merchant's particular settings stored in thee-commerce platform 270. The particular settings for the merchant may beobtained by the processor 274 from the merchant data server 280. Forexample, the data stored for merchant Fred in FIG. 7 indicates thatmerchant Fred has a Facebook™ sales channel. The communications server272 may store in its memory a list of all existing merchant discussiongroups associated with Facebook™, e.g. #SellingOnFacebook, #FacebookAds,#FacebookHacks, etc. This list may be the subset of discussion groupsassociated with the setting “Facebook' sales channel=YES”. This list ofassociated discussion groups may be static and possibly pre-populated bycommunications server 272. Alternatively, associated discussion groupsmay be dynamically added or removed from the list based on factors suchas: use of the term “Facebook” in the title of the discussion group,and/or number of times the word “Facebook” appears in the conversationin the discussion group, and/or percentage of merchants following thediscussion group that have a Facebook™ sales channel, etc.

Based on the settings data indicating that merchant Fred has a Facebook™sales channel, the processor 274 may identify for Fred one or more ofthe discussion groups associated with that setting. In some embodiments,identified discussion groups may be further filtered for a particularmerchant based on one or more of the other factors discussed herein. Forexample, if Fred is also categorized as a “Mature Merchant” in the tablein FIG. 11, then perhaps only discussion groups are identified for Fredthat meet the criteria of both: associated with the setting “Facebook™sales channel=YES”, and the majority of participants in the discussiongroup are also categorized as “Mature Merchant”. An identifieddiscussion group may be recommended to Fred or automatically added tothe set of discussion groups associated with Fred.

As another example, the settings data stored for merchant Fred in FIG. 7may indicate that merchant Fred uses the FedEx™ shipping service, i.e.“FedEx™ shipping service=YES”. Existing discussion groups associatedwith FedEx™ may therefore be recommended to Fred or automatically addedto the set of discussion groups associated with Fred, e.g. #Shipping,#FedEx, etc. Additionally, or instead, the communications server 272 mayidentify trending topics or terms in discussion groups. When “FedEx” istrending in a discussion group, that discussion group may be associatedwith the setting FedEx™ shipping service=YES” and also recommended toFred or automatically added to the set of discussion groups associatedwith Fred. In some embodiments, when “FedEx” is included in the title ofa new discussion group (e.g. #FedExTips), then that discussion group maybe associated with the setting FedEx™ shipping service=YES” andrecommended to Fred or automatically added to the set of discussiongroups associated with Fred.

Note that a discussion group is said to be “trending” if the discussiongroup is experiencing a high volume of postings by many activeparticipants. A topic or term may be said to be “trending” if the topicor term is actively discussed on one or more discussion groups.

In another example, the settings data stored for merchant Fred in FIG. 7may indicate that merchant Fred sells products in China. Existingdiscussion groups associated with the setting “Sells in China=YES” maytherefore be recommended to Fred or automatically added to the set ofdiscussion groups associated with Fred, e.g. #SellInChina.

The communications server 272 may store a mapping of the associationbetween different e-commerce platform settings and different discussiongroups. A non-exhaustive list of example settings include: a particularapplication has been installed by the particular merchant on thee-commerce platform; a particular sales channel is used by theparticular merchant; a particular payment method is used by theparticular merchant; a particular shipping service is used by theparticular merchant; a discount is applied by the particular merchant; aparticular product or product-type is sold by the particular merchant; aparticular collection is sold by the particular merchant; a particularpreference has been indicated by the particular merchant on thee-commerce platform; the merchant's location; the merchant's language;etc. Note that although the example in FIG. 7 illustrates informationunder “profile 352”, more generally this data can be characterized assettings data. Some of the data illustrated under “transaction data 356”may also be characterized as settings data.

FIG. 13 illustrates an example look-up-table 502 of a plurality ofsettings, each setting having associated therewith a respective subsetof discussion groups. Table 502 may be stored in memory 276 of thecommunications server 272. The table 502 is independent of merchants,but instead lists a plurality of settings, and the discussion groupsassociated with each of those settings. For example, the setting“Facebook™ sales channel=YES” (i.e. merchant has a Facebook™ saleschannel) is associated with a subset of discussion groups including#FacebookAds and #FacebookHacks. As another example, the setting“DiscountApplied=YES” (i.e. a merchant has applied a discount to one oftheir products) is associated with a subset of discussion groupsincluding #WhenToRemoveDiscounts and #LeveragingDiscounts. If aparticular merchant has a particular setting (e.g. merchant Jane has thesetting “Facebook™ sales channel=YES”, i.e. merchant Jane has aFacebook™ sales channel), then a target discussion group may beidentified for the merchant that the merchant does not yet follow andthat is associated with the setting. For example, if merchant Jane hasthe setting “Facebook™ sales channel=YES”, then the target discussiongroup #FacebookHacks may be identified because: (1) #FacebookHacks isassociated with the “Facebook™ sales channel=YES” setting, and (2) table322 indicates that Jane does not already follow #FacebookHacks.

The settings for each merchant may be recorded by the e-commerceplatform 270 (e.g. stored in merchant data server 280), and theindication of the setting for a merchant may either be pushed to thecommunications server 272 or periodically pulled by the communicationsserver 272, e.g. via periodic polling of the merchant data server 280.

FIG. 14 illustrates a computer-implemented method performed by a system,according to one embodiment. For the sake of example, the method of FIG.14 will be described as being performed by the processor 274 ofcommunications server 272.

In optional step 552, the processor 274 stores in memory 276 informationrelated to a plurality of discussion groups. The information includes:(i) an identifier for each discussion group that uniquely identifies thediscussion group, and (ii) for each discussion group a time-orderedsequence of messages that belong to the discussion group. An example ofsuch information is that shown in discussion groups 312 in FIG. 5. Forexample, the label #Shipping is an identifier that uniquely identifiesthat discussion group, and the time-ordered sequence of messages includethose shown under the label #Shipping in FIG. 5 (and also on the userinterface in FIG. 6). Step 552 is optional in the embodiment of FIG. 14because the method may instead begin at a later point in time, e.g. atstep 556.

In optional step 554, the processor 272 stores in memory 276associations between merchants and the discussion groups. One exampleway to store the associations is table 322 in FIG. 5, which shows anassociation between each merchant and a respective subset of thediscussion groups. Another example way to store the associations is tohave a table (not illustrated) in which each discussion group hasassociated in memory a respective subset of the merchants. In any case,at least two of the discussion groups may each be associated with arespective different set of merchants. That is, different discussiongroups may have different merchants associated therewith. For example,discussion group #Shipping may be associated with Jane and Fred, but notTed, and discussion group #NewMerchant may be associated with Ted andJane, but not Fred. A message belonging to a discussion group istransmitted to merchant devices of the merchants associated with thediscussion group. Step 554 is optional in the embodiment of FIG. 14because the method may instead begin at a later point in time, e.g. atstep 556.

The following steps are performed for a particular merchant. Theparticular merchant may be a particular user/person (e.g. merchant Fred)or a particular company, or a particular online store. In step 556, theprocessor 272 obtains an indication that the particular merchant has aparticular setting in an e-commerce platform 270. For example, theprocessor 272 detects or obtains an indication of the presence of aparticular setting or of a change to the setting value stored for theparticular merchant in the e-commerce platform 270. In some embodiments,the indication may be pushed from the merchant data server 280. In someembodiments, the indication may be pulled from the merchant data server280. The particular setting is one of a plurality of settings in thee-commerce platform. Each setting of the plurality of settings hasassociated therewith a respective subset of the discussion groups. Oneexample is look-up-table 502 in FIG. 13. In look-up-table 502 in FIG.13, there are a plurality of settings, and each setting has associatedtherewith a respective subset of discussion groups.

In step 558, the processor 274 selects a target discussion group thatthe particular merchant is not already associated with. The targetdiscussion group is selected from the subset of the discussion groupsassociated with the particular setting. For example, Jane's settings inthe e-commerce platform 270 indicate that Jane has a Facebook™ saleschannel, e.g. as shown at 535 in FIG. 7. The setting “Facebook™ saleschannel=YES” has associated therewith a subset of discussion groupsincluding #FacebookAds and #FacebookHacks, as shown in FIG. 13. Table322 of FIG. 5 reveals that Jane is not already associated with thediscussion group #FacebookHacks. Therefore, #FacebookHacks is selectedas a target discussion group for Jane.

In step 560, the processor 274 stores in the memory 276 an associationbetween the particular merchant and the target discussion group in orderto associate the particular merchant with the target discussion group.For example, table 322 may be updated to add #FacebookHacks to Jane'sentry in table 322. Jane is now following the discussion group#FacebookHacks.

In some embodiments, before performing step 560, i.e. before associatingthe particular merchant with the target discussion group, the followingsteps may first be performed. A request may be transmitted over anetwork to a merchant device of the particular merchant. The requestrecommends that the particular merchant be associated with the targetdiscussion group. A response is received over the network from themerchant device of the particular merchant. The response authorizes thatthe particular merchant be associated with the target discussion group.Examples are shown and described in relation to FIG. 9. The request maybe a message transmitted over network 254 to merchant device 252 anddisplayed on the user interface of the merchant's device. The responsemay be generated and sent back to the communications server 272 upon themerchant selecting input object 365 or 366 in FIG. 9.

In some embodiments, the method of FIG. 14 further includes: (1)detecting or obtaining an indication that the particular merchant nolonger has the particular setting stored in the e-commerce platform(e.g. because the setting value has changed); and (2) deleting from thememory the association between the particular merchant and the targetdiscussion group and/or replacing the association with an associationwith another discussion group that may be more relevant or applicable.For example, if Jane changes her settings in the e-commerce platform 270to no longer have a Facebook™ sales channel, then Jane may no longer beassociated with the discussion group #FacebookHacks.

In some embodiments, prior to deleting from the memory the associationbetween the particular merchant and the target discussion group, thefollowing steps are performed: (1) transmitting a request over a networkto a merchant device of the particular merchant, the request queryingwhether the particular merchant is to still be associated with thetarget discussion group; and (2) receiving a response over the networkfrom the merchant device of the particular merchant, the responseindicating that the particular merchant is to no longer be associatedwith the target discussion group. For example, a message may betransmitted to Jane's device asking whether Jane would like to beremoved from the #FacebookHacks discussion group. If Jane responds“yes”, then the association between Jane and #FacebookHacks is deletedfrom table 322. In some embodiments, the request for removing ordeleting a particular discussion group may be coupled with a request foradding another discussion group which may be more applicable orrelevant, such as an association which relates to a new setting value.

In some embodiments, a discussion group in the subset of discussiongroups associated with the particular setting is different from anotherdiscussion group in the subset of discussion groups associated withanother setting. For example, the subset of discussion groups associatedwith the setting “Facebook™ sales channel=YES” in FIG. 13 includesdiscussion group #FacebookHacks. The discussion group #FacebookHacks isdifferent from another discussion group associated with another settingin FIG. 13. In some embodiments, a discussion group in the subset ofdiscussion groups associated with the particular setting is differentfrom each other discussion group in the subset of discussion groupsassociated with another setting, e.g. #FacebookHacks is a discussiongroup different from all of the discussion groups associated with thesetting “Discount Applied=YES”. In some embodiments, a discussion groupin the subset of discussion groups associated with the particularsetting is different from the discussion groups in each other subset ofdiscussion groups associated with each other setting of the plurality ofsettings, e.g. #WhenToRemoveDiscount is associated with the setting“Discount Applied=YES”, and #WhenToRemoveDiscount is different from anyother discussion group associated with any other setting in FIG. 13.

In some embodiments, for each setting of the plurality of settings: adiscussion group in the subset of discussion groups associated with thesetting is different from the discussion groups in each other subset ofdiscussion groups associated with each other setting of the plurality ofsettings. For example, in FIG. 13, each setting has associated therewithat least one discussion group that is only associated with that settingand not associated with any other setting.

In some embodiments, the particular setting indicates at least one ofthe following: a particular application installed by the particularmerchant on the e-commerce platform; a particular sales channel used bythe particular merchant; a particular payment method used by theparticular merchant; a particular shipping service used by theparticular merchant; a discount applied by the particular merchant; aparticular product or product-type sold by the particular merchant; aparticular collection sold by the particular merchant; a particularpreference of the particular merchant on the e-commerce platform.

In some embodiments, the method of FIG. 14 further includes: (1)receiving a request over a network from a merchant device of a merchant,the request to create a new discussion group; (2) storing in the memorya new identifier for the new discussion group that uniquely identifiesthe new discussion group; (3) storing in the memory subsequent messagesthat belong to the new discussion group; and (4) associating the newdiscussion group with a given setting of the plurality of settings. Insome embodiments, the merchant that requested to create the newdiscussion group has the given setting in the e-commerce platform. Insome embodiments, the majority of merchants associated with the newdiscussion group each have the given setting in the e-commerce platform.For example, merchant Jane may decide that she wants to start a newdiscussion group she calls #FacebookNewbie. Jane sends a request (viaher merchant device) to server 272 to create the new discussion group.The processor 274 stores the new identifier (#FacebookNewbie) for thegroup in discussion groups 312, along with any subsequent messages thatbelong to the new discussion group. The processor 274 also decides whiche-commerce setting(s) to associate the new group with, and stores theassociation. In some embodiments, the new group may be associated withthe setting “Facebook™ sales channel=YES” because Jane has this settingin the e-commerce platform 270, i.e. Jane has a Facebook™ sales channel.In some embodiments, the new group may be associated with the setting“Facebook™ sales channel=YES” because the majority of merchantsassociated with or participating in (e.g. posting messages in) the newdiscussion group each have this setting, i.e. each have a Facebook™sales channel. The decision to associate the new discussion group withthe setting “Facebook™ sales channel=YES” may be based on other ordifferent factors instead, e.g. the use of the word “Facebook” in thetitle of the group and/or the number of times the word “Facebook”appears in the messages posted to the new discussion group.

In some embodiments, step 556 includes querying settings data in thee-commerce platform to obtain the indication that the particularmerchant has the particular setting.

In some embodiments, the subset of discussion groups associated with asetting in an e-commerce platform may include one or more discussiongroups that relate to another setting in the e-commerce platform. Thismay allow for a discussion group relating to one setting in thee-commerce platform to be associated with (e.g. recommended to) amerchant having another setting in the e-commerce platform. For example,a merchant may have the setting “Facebook Channel=NO”. However, themerchant may benefit from having a Facebook™ sales channel. Therefore,one or more of the discussion groups related to “Facebook Channel=YES”may be associated with the “Facebook Channel=NO” setting and recommendedto the merchant. The decision to make the recommendation may be based onother factors also, e.g. the similarity between merchants. For example,a first merchant having the setting “Facebook Channel=NO” may be similarto a second merchant having the setting “Facebook Channel=YES” (e.g. thefirst merchant and the second merchant may have something in common,such as sell the same category of products or services, and/or live inthe same geographical location, etc.). A discussion group that isassociated with the second merchant may be recommended to the firstmerchant.

Identifying Merchant Discussion Groups Based on Other Information

In some embodiments, a merchant discussion group may be identified for amerchant based on an action taken by the merchant or information inputby the merchant. The action may be recorded by the e-commerce platform270 (e.g. stored in merchant data server 280), and the indication of theaction may either be pushed to the communications server 272 orperiodically pulled by the communications server 272 (e.g. via periodicpolling of the merchant data server 280).

Examples of actions may include fulfilling an order, hovering the mouseover a particular box on the user interface of the merchant's device,etc. Any action taken by a merchant and registered by the e-commerceplatform may be used to trigger or factor into identifying a merchantdiscussion group. A table similar to that in FIG. 13 may be used inwhich each action is associated with a respective subset of discussiongroups. In some embodiments, a method may include, for a particularmerchant: (1) obtaining an indication that the particular merchant hastaken a particular action, wherein the particular action is one of aplurality of possible actions, and wherein each action of the pluralityof actions has associated therewith a respective subset of thediscussion groups; (2) selecting a target discussion group that theparticular merchant is not already associated with, the targetdiscussion group being selected from the subset of the discussion groupsassociated with the particular action; and (3) storing in the memory anassociation between the particular merchant and the target discussiongroup in order to associate the particular merchant with the targetdiscussion group.

In some embodiments, a merchant discussion group may only be identifiedfor a merchant if that discussion group is trending or has recentactivity.

In some embodiments, a merchant discussion group may be identified for amerchant based on another merchant discussion group the merchant isalready following. For example, if merchant Jane is already following#NewMerchant, then another discussion group may be identified formerchant Jane that is trending and for which a high percentage of activeparticipants are also part of the #NewMerchant group.

For example, merchant John is not known by Jane, but merchant Johnfollows the #NewMerchant group. Merchant John starts a new discussiongroup #NewbieHacks, and that new discussion group starts trending.#NewbieHacks also has a lot of followers that are also part of the#NewMerchant group. Therefore, the #NewbieHacks discussion group may beidentified for Jane, e.g. it may be recommended to Jane or automaticallyadded to the set of discussion groups associated with Jane.

In some embodiments, a merchant discussion group may be identified for amerchant based on another merchant discussion group in which themerchant is actively participating. For example, in the exampleimmediately above, the #NewbieHacks group may only be identified forJane if Jane is actively participating in the #NewMerchant group, e.g.Jane recently posted a message in the #NewMerchant group. As anotherexample, if a merchant is actively participating in the #Shippingdiscussion group, then if a related discussion group (e.g. #FedEx)became trending, then that discussion group may be identified for themerchant.

In some embodiments, a merchant discussion group may be identified for amerchant based on the content of messages posted by that merchant in oneor more discussion groups. For example, if merchant Jane posted amessage in the #NewMerchant group asking “Which shipping service is bestif I have small products and low sales? Anyone happy with FedEx?”, thenthe processor 274 may identify the word “shipping” in the posting byJane and identify a merchant discussion group for Jane relevant to thatword, e.g. the #Shipping discussion group. The processor 274 mayidentify that “FedEx” is next to a “?”, indicating that Jane may beinterested in FedEx™, and so the processor 274 may identify a merchantdiscussion group relating to FedEx™, e.g. #FedEx.

In some embodiments, a merchant discussion group may be identified for amerchant based on merchant discussion groups that similar merchants arefollowing or actively participating in. Two merchants may be categorizedas “similar” if the data retrieved on each merchant in the e-commerceplatform 270 indicates that the merchants are in a same category (e.g. acategory of products or services of the merchant, or a merchantdevelopment phase category) or have something in common. Anon-exhaustive list of examples include: both merchants are categorizedas “New Merchant”, and/or both merchants live in the same geographicallocation, and/or both merchants sell a same product, and/or bothmerchants have a physical store, and/or both merchants sell onInstagram™, and/or both merchants have low conversion rates, etc. Forexample, if merchant Fred and merchant Ted are both categorized asmature merchants, and both have one physical store, and both sell thesame category of products (e.g. calendars), then both merchants may beconsidered similar merchants, even though Fred lives in New York and Tedlives in California. If Fred is actively participating in a particularmerchant discussion group, e.g. #FiringEmployees, then this discussiongroup may also be identified for merchant Ted, e.g. it may berecommended to Ted or automatically added to the set of discussiongroups associated with Ted.

Machine Learning Implementation

In some embodiments, the process of selecting a target discussion groupfor a particular merchant may involve executing a series of pre-definedrules that map certain merchant-specific data to certain outcomes. Anexample is the look-up-table 402 in FIG. 11 in which a merchant ismapped to a particular category using pre-programmed rules such aswhether total sales are below $10,000 and whether average website visitsper day are less than 20.

In some embodiments, machine learning may instead be used, e.g. forimplementing functions such as categorizing a merchant and/orassociating certain discussion groups with certain categories orsettings, and/or selecting a target discussion group from a subset ofdiscussion groups. The processor 274 may implement a machine learningalgorithm that may use supervised or unsupervised learning. As oneexample, instead of a look-up-table 402 implementing the simple rulesshown in FIG. 11 (i.e. instead of a rule based on whether total salesare below $10,000 and whether average views per day are less than 20),the mapping of a merchant to one of the four categories in FIG. 11 mayinstead be implemented using machine learning. The machine learningalgorithm may categorize the merchant as either “New Merchant”,“High-conversion Merchant”, “Low-conversion Merchant”, or “MatureMerchant” based on merchant-specific data. As another example, once themerchant has been categorized into one of the four categories in FIG.11, a machine learning algorithm may be used to select the targetdiscussion group from the discussion groups associated with thatcategory, e.g. using merchant-specific data. As another example, amachine learning algorithm may be used to decide which discussion groupswill be associated with each of the four categories in FIG. 11. Asanother example, if a merchant has a particular setting in thee-commerce platform, a machine learning algorithm may be used to selecta target discussion group from the subset of discussion groupsassociated with that particular setting. The target discussion group maybe selected by the machine learning algorithm processingmerchant-specific data for the merchant. As another example, a machinelearning algorithm may be used to decide which discussion groups will beassociated with each setting.

Step 458 of FIG. 12 (using the data to categorize the particularmerchant as belonging to a particular category of a plurality ofcategories), and/or step 460 of FIG. 12 (selecting a target discussiongroup for the merchant), and/or step 558 of FIG. 14 (selecting a targetdiscussion group for the merchant) may be implemented using machinelearning.

CONCLUSION

Although the present invention has been described with reference tospecific features and embodiments thereof, various modifications andcombinations can be made thereto without departing from the invention.The description and drawings are, accordingly, to be regarded simply asan illustration of some embodiments of the invention as defined by theappended claims, and are contemplated to cover any and allmodifications, variations, combinations or equivalents that fall withinthe scope of the present invention. Therefore, although the presentinvention and its advantages have been described in detail, variouschanges, substitutions and alterations can be made herein withoutdeparting from the invention as defined by the appended claims.Moreover, the scope of the present application is not intended to belimited to the particular embodiments of the process, machine,manufacture, composition of matter, means, methods and steps describedin the specification. As one of ordinary skill in the art will readilyappreciate from the disclosure of the present invention, processes,machines, manufacture, compositions of matter, means, methods, or steps,presently existing or later to be developed, that perform substantiallythe same function or achieve substantially the same result as thecorresponding embodiments described herein may be utilized according tothe present invention. Accordingly, the appended claims are intended toinclude within their scope such processes, machines, manufacture,compositions of matter, means, methods, or steps.

Moreover, any module, component, or device exemplified herein thatexecutes instructions may include or otherwise have access to anon-transitory computer/processor readable storage medium or media forstorage of information, such as computer/processor readableinstructions, data structures, program modules, and/or other data. Anon-exhaustive list of examples of non-transitory computer/processorreadable storage media includes magnetic cassettes, magnetic tape,magnetic disk storage or other magnetic storage devices, optical diskssuch as compact disc read-only memory (CD-ROM), digital video discs ordigital versatile disc (DVDs), Blu-ray Disc™, or other optical storage,volatile and non-volatile, removable and non-removable media implementedin any method or technology, random-access memory (RAM), read-onlymemory (ROM), electrically erasable programmable read-only memory(EEPROM), flash memory or other memory technology. Any suchnon-transitory computer/processor storage media may be part of a deviceor accessible or connectable thereto. Any application or module hereindescribed may be implemented using computer/processorreadable/executable instructions that may be stored or otherwise held bysuch non-transitory computer/processor readable storage media.

1. A computer-implemented method comprising: obtaining an indicationthat a particular merchant has taken a particular action, wherein theparticular action is one of a plurality of actions that may possibly betaken by a merchant, and wherein each action of the plurality of actionshas associated therewith a respective subset of discussion groups;selecting a target discussion group that the particular merchant is notalready associated with, the target discussion group being selected fromthe subset of the discussion groups associated with the particularaction; and storing in memory an association between the particularmerchant and the target discussion group in order to associate theparticular merchant with the target discussion group; wherein for eachdiscussion group there is stored a time-ordered sequence of messagesthat belong to the discussion group; further wherein associationsbetween merchants and the discussion groups are stored, wherein at leasttwo of the discussion groups are each associated with a respectivedifferent set of merchants, and wherein a message belonging to a givendiscussion group is transmitted to merchant devices of the merchantsassociated with the given discussion group.
 2. The computer-implementedmethod of claim 1, wherein prior to associating the particular merchantwith the target discussion group: transmitting a request over a networkto a merchant device of the particular merchant, the requestrecommending that the particular merchant be associated with the targetdiscussion group; and receiving a response over the network from themerchant device of the particular merchant, the response authorizingthat the particular merchant be associated with the target discussiongroup.
 3. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, further comprisingdeleting from the memory the association between the particular merchantand the target discussion group, wherein prior to deleting from thememory the association between the particular merchant and the targetdiscussion group: transmitting a request over a network to a merchantdevice of the particular merchant, the request querying whether theparticular merchant is to still be associated with the target discussiongroup; and receiving a response over the network from the merchantdevice of the particular merchant, the response indicating that theparticular merchant is to no longer be associated with the targetdiscussion group.
 4. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, whereina discussion group in the subset of discussion groups associated withthe particular action is different from another discussion group in thesubset of discussion groups associated with another action.
 5. Thecomputer-implemented method of claim 4, wherein for each action of theplurality of actions: a discussion group in the subset of discussiongroups associated with the action is different from the discussiongroups in each other subset of discussion groups associated with eachother action of the plurality of actions.
 6. The computer-implementedmethod of claim 1, wherein the particular action is one of: fulfillingan order; hovering a mouse cursor over a particular user interfaceelement; accepting a return of an item from a customer; providing arefund to the customer; participating in a particular discussion group;adding a new collection to an online store; adding a new product to theonline store; or inputting particular information related to an accountor store of the particular merchant.
 7. The computer-implemented methodof claim 1, wherein information related to the plurality of thediscussion groups is stored in the memory, the information including: anidentifier for each discussion group that uniquely identifies thediscussion group.
 8. The computer-implemented method of claim 7, furthercomprising: receiving a request over a network from a merchant device ofa merchant, the request to create a new discussion group; storing in thememory a new identifier for the new discussion group that uniquelyidentifies the new discussion group; storing in the memory subsequentmessages that belong to the new discussion group; associating the newdiscussion group with a given action of the plurality of actions.
 9. Thecomputer-implemented method of claim 8, wherein the merchant thatrequested to create the new discussion group already took the givenaction.
 10. The computer-implemented method of claim 8, wherein themajority of merchants associated with the new discussion group each havealready taken the given action.
 11. A system comprising: a memory tostore information related to a plurality of discussion groups; aprocessor to, for a particular merchant: obtain an indication that theparticular merchant has taken a particular action, wherein theparticular action is one of a plurality of actions that may possibly betaken by a merchant, and wherein each action of the plurality of actionshas associated therewith a respective subset of the discussion groups;select a target discussion group that the particular merchant is notalready associated with, the target discussion group being selected fromthe subset of the discussion groups associated with the particularaction; and store in the memory an association between the particularmerchant and the target discussion group in order to associate theparticular merchant with the target discussion group; wherein for eachdiscussion group there is stored a time-ordered sequence of messagesthat belong to the discussion group; further wherein associationsbetween merchants and the discussion groups are stored, wherein at leasttwo of the discussion groups are each associated with a respectivedifferent set of merchants, and wherein a message belonging to a givendiscussion group is to be transmitted to merchant devices of themerchants associated with the given discussion group.
 12. The system ofclaim 11, wherein prior to associating the particular merchant with thetarget discussion group, the processor is further to: generate a requestfor transmission over a network to a merchant device of the particularmerchant, the request recommending that the particular merchant beassociated with the target discussion group; and receive a response overthe network from the merchant device of the particular merchant, theresponse authorizing that the particular merchant be associated with thetarget discussion group.
 13. The system of claim 11, wherein theprocessor is further to delete from the memory the association betweenthe particular merchant and the target discussion group, and whereinprior to deleting from the memory the association between the particularmerchant and the target discussion group, the processor is to: generatea request for transmission over a network to a merchant device of theparticular merchant, the request querying whether the particularmerchant is to still be associated with the target discussion group; andreceive a response over the network from the merchant device of theparticular merchant, the response indicating that the particularmerchant is to no longer be associated with the target discussion group.14. The system of claim 11, wherein a discussion group in the subset ofdiscussion groups associated with the particular action is differentfrom another discussion group in the subset of discussion groupsassociated with another action.
 15. The system of claim 14, wherein foreach action of the plurality of actions: a discussion group in thesubset of discussion groups associated with the action is different fromthe discussion groups in each other subset of discussion groupsassociated with each other action of the plurality of actions.
 16. Thesystem of claim 11, wherein the particular action is one of: fulfillingan order; hovering a mouse cursor over a particular user interfaceelement; accepting a return of an item from a customer; providing arefund to the customer; participating in a particular discussion group;adding a new collection to an online store; adding a new product to theonline store; or inputting particular information related to an accountor store of the particular merchant.
 17. The system of claim 11, whereinthe information related to the plurality of discussion groups includes:an identifier for each discussion group that uniquely identifies thediscussion group.
 18. The system of claim 17, wherein the processor isfurther to: receive a request from a merchant device of a merchant, therequest to create a new discussion group; store in the memory a newidentifier for the new discussion group that uniquely identifies the newdiscussion group; store in the memory subsequent messages that belong tothe new discussion group; associate the new discussion group with agiven action of the plurality of actions.
 19. The system of claim 18,wherein the merchant that requested to create the new discussion groupalready took the given action.
 20. The system of claim 18, wherein themajority of merchants associated with the new discussion group each havealready taken the given action.
 21. A non-transitory computer-readablemedium having stored thereon computer-executable instructions that, whenexecuted, cause a computer to perform operations comprising: obtainingan indication that a particular merchant has taken a particular action,wherein the particular action is one of a plurality of actions that maypossibly be taken by a merchant, and wherein each action of theplurality of actions has associated therewith a respective subset ofdiscussion groups; selecting a target discussion group that theparticular merchant is not already associated with, the targetdiscussion group being selected from the subset of the discussion groupsassociated with the particular action; and storing in memory anassociation between the particular merchant and the target discussiongroup in order to associate the particular merchant with the targetdiscussion group; wherein for each discussion group there is stored atime-ordered sequence of messages that belong to the discussion group;further wherein associations between merchants and the discussion groupsare stored, wherein at least two of the discussion groups are eachassociated with a respective different set of merchants, and wherein amessage belonging to a given discussion group is transmitted to merchantdevices of the merchants associated with the given discussion group.